Place of Articulation - Place of Articulation (active)

Place of Articulation (active)

The articulatory gesture of the active place of articulation involves the more mobile part of the vocal tract. This is typically some part of the tongue or lips. The following areas are known to be contrastive:

• The lower lip (labial)
• Various parts of the front of the tongue:
  • The tip of the tongue (apical)
  • The upper front surface of the tongue just behind the tip, called the blade of the tongue (laminal)
  • The surface of the tongue under the tip (subapical)
• The body of the tongue (dorsal)
• The base AKA root of the tongue in the throat (radical)
• The epiglottis, the flap at the base of the tongue (epiglottal)
• The aryepiglottic folds at the entrance to the larynx (also epiglottal)
• The glottis (laryngeal)

In bilabial consonants both lips move, so the articulatory gesture is bringing together the lips, but by convention the lower lip is said to be active and the upper lip passive. Similarly, in linguo-labial consonants the tongue contacts the upper lip with the upper lip actively moving down to meet the tongue; nonetheless, in this gesture the tongue is conventionally said to be active and the lip passive, if for no other reason than the fact that the parts of the mouth below the vocal tract are typically active, and those above the vocal tract typically passive.

In dorsal gestures different parts of the body of the tongue contact different parts of the roof of the mouth, but this cannot be independently controlled, so they are all subsumed under the term dorsal. This is unlike coronal gestures involving the front of the tongue, which is more flexible.

The epiglottis may be active, contacting the pharynx, or passive, being contacted by the aryepiglottal folds. Distinctions made in these laryngeal areas are very difficult to observe and are the subject of ongoing investigation, with several as-yet unidentified combinations thought possible.

The glottis acts upon itself. There is a sometimes fuzzy line between glottal, aryepiglottal, and epiglottal consonants and phonation, which uses these same areas.

Unlike the passive articulation, which is a continuum, there are five discrete active articulators: the lip (labial consonants), the flexible front of the tongue (coronal consonants: laminal, apical, and subapical), the middle–back of the tongue (dorsal consonants), the root of the tongue together with the epiglottis (radical consonants), and the larynx (laryngeal consonants). These articulators are discrete in that they can act independently of each other, and two or more may work together in what is called coarticulation (see below). The distinction between the various coronal articulations, laminal, apical, and supapical, are however a continuum without clear boundaries.