In phonetics and phonology, an alveolar stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the tongue in contact with the alveolar ridge located just behind the teeth (hence alveolar), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a stop consonant).
The upcoming vowel target is adjusted to demand force and effort during the coarticulating process. More generally, several kinds are distinguished:
Note that alveolar and are not always carefully distinguished. Acoustically, the two types of sounds are similar, and it is rare for a language to have both types.
If necessary, an alveolar consonant can be transcribed with the combining equals sign below , as with for the voiceless alveolar stop. A dental consonant can be transcribed with the combining bridge below , and a postalveolar consonant with the retraction diacritic, the combining minus sign below .
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