In phonetics and phonology, an alveolar stop is a type of consonantal[1] 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).[2] The most common sounds are the stops pronounced as /[t]/[3] and pronounced as /[d]/, as in English toe and doe, and the voiced nasal pronounced as /[n]/. The 2-D finite element mode of the front part of the midsagittal tongue can stimulate the air pressed release of an alveolar stop.[4] Alveolar consonants in children's productions have generally been demonstrated to undergo smaller vowel-related coarticulatory effects than labial and velar consonants, thus yielding consonant-specific patterns similar to those observed in adults.[5]
The upcoming vowel target is adjusted to demand force and effort during the coarticulating process.[6] More generally, several kinds are distinguished:
Note that alveolar and dental stops 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 (IPA|◌͇), as with (IPA|t͇) for the voiceless alveolar stop. A dental consonant can be transcribed with the combining bridge below (IPA|t̪), and a postalveolar consonant with the retraction diacritic, the combining minus sign below (IPA|t̠).
pronounced as /navigation/