Postalveolar consonant

Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants).

Among the fricatives and affricates, a subtype called palato-alveolar consonants (see below) are shown with examples in the table. The alveolo-palatal and retroflex consonants are also postalveolar in their point of articulation, but they are given separate columns in the IPA chart, and illustrated with examples in their own articles.

The palato-alveolar sibilants and postalveolar clicks identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA	Description	Example
		Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
Xsampa-S2.png	Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative	English	ship	[]	ship
Xsampa-Z2.png	Voiced palato-alveolar fricative	English	vision	[]	vision
IPA_voiceless_postalveolar_affricate.png	Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate	English	chip	[]	chip
IPA_voiced_postalveolar_affricate.png	Voiced palato-alveolar affricate	English	jug	[]	jug
Xsampa-exclamationslash.png	Apical (post)alveolar click release	Nama	!oas	[]	hollow
Xsampa-equalsslash.png	Laminal postalveolar click release

Note: In IPA tradition, the affricates may also be written with the symbols for the palatal plosives, .

Types of postalveolar fricatives and affricates

The difference between palato-alveolar, alveolo-palatal, retroflex, and several other articulations is in the shape of the tongue rather than the location of the contact with the roof of the mouth. All are postalveolar in that sense.

One variable in tongue shape is whether the contact occurs with the very tip of the tongue (an "apical" articulation with the surface just above the tip, called the blade of the tongue (a "laminal" articulation or with the underside of the tip (a "sub-apical" articulation). The latter articulation is more commonly palatal, but may have postalveolar allophones.

palato-alveolar fricative

alveolo-palatal fricative

A second variable is the amount of raising of the tongue behind this point of contact, which amounts to a degree of palatalization. From least to most palatalized, the attested possibilities are flat bunched-up or domed palato-alveolar and alveolo-palatal Of course, these possibilities may all be voiced as well:

There is an additional postalveolar articulation found in Circassian languages such as Ubyx: the tip of the tongue rests against the lower teeth so that there is no sublingual cavity. Ladefoged has called this a "closed laminal postalveolar" articulation; Catford describes the fricatives as "hissing-hushing" sounds, and transcribes them as (note: this is not IPA notation). Presumably this "closed" articulation may be combined with the other two as a third variable, but this is not attested.

The attested possibilities, with exemplar languages, are as follows. Note that the IPA diacritics are simplified; some articulations would require two diacritics to be fully specified, but only one is used in order to keep the results legible without the need for OpenType IPA fonts. Also, Ladefoged has resurrected an obsolete IPA symbol, the under dot, to indicate apical postalveolar (normally included in the category of retroflex consonants), and that notation is used here. (Note that the notation is sometimes reversed; either may also be called 'retroflex' and written .)

IPA	Place of articulation	Exemplifying languages
	laminal flat postalveolar (laminal retroflex)	Mandarin sh, zh, ch, Polish sz, rz, cz, ż
	apical postalveolar (apical retroflex)	Ubyx, Toda
	domed postalveolar (palato-alveolar)	English sh, zh (may be either laminal or apical)
	laminal domed postalveolar	Toda
	laminal palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal)	Mandarin q, j, x, Polish ć, ś, ź, Ubyx
	laminal closed postalveolar	Ubyx
	sub-apical postalveolar or palatal (sub-apical retroflex)	Toda

Other postalveolars

Some languages which distinguish "dental" vs. "alveolar" stops have something closer to prealveolar and postalveolar. Such is the case for Malayalam speakers who trill both of that language's rhotics: vs. . Since these are trills and therefore both apical, the latter is usually termed retroflex.

However, in some non-standard forms of Malayalam, there is a laminal postalveolar nasal that contrasts with apical alveolar, palatal, and subapical retroflex nasals: .

See also

* Place of articulation
* Alveolo-palatal consonant
* Retroflex consonant
* List of phonetics topics

Reference

*Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson, The Sounds of the World's Languages. Blackwell Publishers, 1996. ISBN 0631198156