Voiceless alveolar plosive - Definition and Overview

IPA - Unicode	t
IPA - image
X-SAMPA	t
Kirshenbaum	t
Sound sample

The voiceless alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is t, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t. The voiceless alveolar plosive occurs in English, and it is the sound represented by "t" in toward and stop.

Features of this consonant:

• Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge.
• Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Varieties of [t]

In English

English has both aspirated and plain [t], but they are allophones.

When [t] occurs at the beginning of a word or a stressed syllable, like in try, senatorial, or today, then it is always aspirated. When it occurs at the beginning of an unstressed syllable that isn't at the beginning of a word, like in volatile, palatable, or theater, then it becomes an alveolar tap in most North American dialects, and it is slightly aspirated or unaspirated in other dialects. When [t] occurs in a consonant cluster following [s], like in stop, strain, or register, then it is always unaspirated. When it occurs at the end of a word, like in pit, waist, or apt, then it is usually unaspirated, and if the word is at the end of an utterance, then the [t] is often unreleased.

The glottal stop and alveolar flap are also allophones of t (the latter occuring only in American English). However, this depends on context, as the glottal stop may be spoken without the speaker even realizing it, and the alveolar flap may also be an allophone of d. See the articles on those consonants for a more complete explanation.

In other languages

The [t] sound is a very common sound cross-linguistically. Most languages have at least a plain [t], and some distinguish more than variety. Many Indian languages, such as Hindi, have a two-way contrast between aspirated and plain [t].

Georgian

Georgian has aspirated and ejective [t]. They are distinct phonemes, not allophones. Aspirated t is spelled with თ. Ejective t is spelled with ტ.

German

In German, as in English, aspirated and plain [t] are allophones.