Discuss the various oral articulations.

1. Labial Articulation: They use the lower lip as the active articulator. They are further subdivided into;
Bilabials-These are produced when the lips come together. They are; /p/ /b/ and /m/.
Labio-dentals- They are produced when the lower lip and the upper teeth come together.
They are; /f/ /v/ e.g. in words such as ‘photo’ and ‘van’.


2. Dent-Alveolar Articulation: They use the tip and blade of the tongue as the active articulators. They are divided into:
a) Dentals - These are sounds that are formed with the tip of the tongue, which could be either behind the upper front teeth or between the teeth. The term inter-dental is sometimes used to refer to a manner of pronunciation with the tip of the tongue between (inter)the upper and lower teeth. Two sounds are identified in this category. That is the sound ‘th’ in words such as ‘thug’. We have the voiceless dental sound /?/ in words like; ‘thin’ and ‘think’ and the voiced dental sound in words such as ‘there’ ‘then’ and ‘thus’.

b) Alveolar Sounds - these are sounds formed with the front part of the tongue on the alveolar ridge. The alveolar ridge is the rough bony ridge immediately behind the upper teeth.
The sounds produced are;/t/ /d/ /s/ /z/ /n/; other alveolar sounds are /l/-found at the beginning of words such as ‘lap’ and the sound /r/ in words such as ‘right.’

c) Post -alveolar sounds - There are two points of contact in the articulation of these sounds. The tip of the tongue is raised close to the alveolar ridge while the front part of the tongue is curved towards the roof of the mouth.


3. Retroflex- palatal sounds -These sounds are produced with the sub-lamina part of the tongue (underlain) as the active articulator. They are divided into;-
Retroflex sounds – These are sounds that are produced with the tip of the tongue curled back towards the hard palate. The Indian language has many retroflex consonants. Examples include:
Palatal sounds - these sounds are produced when the front of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate.(Approximates the hard palate) Examples of these sounds are;
// -the initial sound in words such as ‘yet’ ‘yell’
/?/-the initial sound in Kiswahili words such as ‘nyama’ ‘nyani’


4. Velar-uvula sounds - These are articulated with the back part of the tongue (The posterodorsal part of the tongue. They are divided into velar and uvula sounds.
a) Velar sounds -These are sounds that are produced by raising the back of the tongue to the soft palate (velum). They include: /g/ and /k/.
The velum can also be lowered to allow air to flow through the nasal cavity and produce another velar sound /?/, the final sound in words such as ‘sang’ ‘bang’.

b) Uvula sounds – These are mainly found in other languages for instance among the Somali. These sounds are: /G/ /N/ /R/.

---

francis1897 answered the question on August 23, 2022 at 08:23