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Postalveolar ( post-alveolar) consonants are articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther 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. Examples of postalveolar consonants are the English language palato-alveolar consonants , as in the words " ship", " 'chill", "vi sion", and " jump", respectively.
There are many types of postalveolar sounds—especially among the . The three primary types are palato-alveolar (such as , weakly palatalized; also alveopalatal), alveolo-palatal (such as , strongly palatalized), and retroflex (such as , unpalatalized). The palato-alveolar and alveolo-palatal subtypes are commonly counted as "palatals" in phonology since they rarely contrast with true palatal consonants.
However, among sibilants, particularly postalveolar sibilants, there are slight differences in the shape of the tongue and the point of contact on the tongue itself, which correspond to large differences in the resulting sound. For example, the alveolar fricative and the three postalveolar fricatives differ noticeably both in pitch and sharpness; the order corresponds to progressively lower-pitched and duller (less "hissy" or piercing) sounds. ( is the highest-pitched and most piercing, which is the reason that hissing sounds like "Sssst!" or "Psssst!" are typically used to attract someone's attention). As a result, it is necessary to specify many additional subtypes.
Less technically, the retroflex consonant sounds somewhat like a mixture between the regular English of "ship" and the "h" at the beginning of "heard", especially when it is pronounced forcefully and with a strong American "r". The alveolo-palatal consonant sounds like a strongly palatalized version of , somewhat like "nourish you".
The following table shows the three types of postalveolar sibilant fricatives defined in the IPA:
| +IPA transcription of postalveolar sibilants |
The upward curvature of the tongue tip to make apical or subapical contact renders palatalization more difficult so domed (palato-alveolar) consonants are not attested with subapical articulation and fully palatalized (such as alveolo-palatal) sounds occur only with laminal articulation. Also, the apical-laminal distinction among palato-alveolar sounds makes little (although presumably non-zeroThe Toda language consistently uses a laminal articulation for its palato-alveolar sibilants, which presumably makes the sound a bit "sharper", more like the alveolo-palatal sibilants, increasing the perceptual difference from the two types of retroflex sibilants that also occur in Toda.) perceptible difference; both articulations, in fact, occur among English-speakers.
As a result, the differing points of tongue contact (laminal, apical and subapical) are significant largely for retroflex sounds. Retroflex sounds can also occur outside of the postalveolar region, ranging from as far back as the hard palate to as far forward as the alveolar region behind the teeth. Subapical retroflex sounds are often palatal (and vice versa), which occur particularly in the Dravidian languages.
However, the palato-alveolar sibilants in Northwest Caucasian languages such as the extinct Ubykh language have the tongue tip resting directly against the lower teeth rather than in the hollowed area. Ladefoged and Maddieson term it a " closed laminal postalveolar" articulation, which gives the sounds a quality that JC Catford describes as "hissing-hushing" sounds. Catford transcribes them as (that is not IPA notation; the obsolete IPA letters have occasionally been resurrected for these sounds).
A laminal "closed" articulation could also be made with alveolo-palatal sibilants and a laminal "non-closed" articulation with alveolar sibilants, but no language appears to do so. In addition, no language seems to have a minimal contrast between two sounds based only on the "closed"/"non-closed" variation, with no concomitant articulatory distinctions (for all languages, including the Northwest Caucasian languages, if the language has two laminal sibilants, one of which is "closed" and the other is "non-closed", they will also differ in some other ways).
The attested possibilities, with exemplar languages, are as follows. IPA diacritics are simplified, and some articulations would require two diacritics to be fully specified, but only one is used to keep the results legible without the need for OpenType IPA fonts. Also, Peter Ladefoged, whose notation is used here, has resurrected an obsolete IPA symbol, the under dot, to indicate the apical postalveolar, which is normally included in the category of retroflex consonants. The notation is sometimes reversed, and either may also be called 'retroflex' and written .
| Polish language sz, rz, cz, dż, Mandarin Chinese sh, zh, ch |
| Ubykh language, Toda language |
| English language sh, zh (may be either laminal or apical) |
| Toda |
| Mandarin q, j, x, Polish ć, ś, ź, dź, Ubykh |
| Ubykh |
| Toda |
The normal rhotic consonant ( r-sound) in English language is a postalveolar approximant ). In some dialects of American English, this may either be a velar bunched approximant or a retroflex approximant . Retroflex rhotics of various sorts, especially approximants and flap consonant occur commonly in the world's languages. Some languages also have retroflex trills. Toda language is particularly unusual in that it has six trills, including a palatalized/non-palatalized distinction and a three-way place distinction among dental, alveolar and retroflex trills.
In phonological descriptions, alveolo-palatal postalveolar non-sibilants are usually not distinguished as such but are considered to be variants of either palatal non-sibilants (such as or of palatalized alveolar non-sibilants (such as ). Even the two types are often not distinguished among nasals and laterals, as almost all languages have only one palatalized/palatal nasal or lateral in their phonemic inventories. For example, the sound described as a "palatal lateral" in various and often indicated as is most often alveolo-palatal (like in Catalan language and Italian language) and sometimes a palatalized alveolar , such as in some northern Brazilian Portuguese dialects.
The IPA does not have specific symbols for alveolo-palatal non-sibilants, but they can be denoted using the advanced diacritic like . Sinology often use special symbols for alveolo-palatal non-sibilants, , created by analogy with the curls used to mark alveolo-palatal sibilants. However, the actual sounds indicated using these symbols are often palatal or palatalized alveolar rather than alveolo-palatal, like the variation for symbols like . The decision to use the special alveolo-palatal symbols in sinology is largely based on distributional similarities between the sounds in question and the alveolo-palatal sibilants, which are prominent in many East Asian languages.
Some Australian languages distinguish four coronal nasals and laterals: laminal dental , apical alveolar , laminal postalveolar (palatalized) , and apical postalveolar (retroflex) .
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