Places and manners of articulation

Liquids

In this group, we look at sounds that are known as ‘l-sounds’ and ‘r-sounds’, which present a wide variety. The voiced alveolar approximant [l], found in English, is one of the most common laterals in languages. Palatal [ʎ], which is found in languages such as Italian and Portuguese, is another common lateral approximant. Laterals are most likely to be approximants and voiced; however, neither of these qualities is necessarily the case. Fricative laterals are more commonly voiceless (e.g. voiceless, alveolar fricative [ɬ], as in Welsh).

The r-sounds, while they all are normally voiced, present a wider range in types than laterals. It is common to see a distinction between ‘continuant’ and ‘interrupted’ r-sounds. The r-sounds of English (retroflex approximant in American English, [ɹ̣], alveolar approximant in British English, [ɹ]) are examples of continuants.

More commonly, r-sounds belong to one of the ‘interrupted’ types (taps, flaps, trills). Both taps and flaps involve a momentary contact between the articulators. The Spanish [ɾ], in caro [kaɾo] “expensive” (or the American English intervocalic /t/, as in writer), is made with a flicking movement of the tip of the tongue against the upper articulator. Taps are sometimes equated with flaps, which is not accurate. First, taps are mostly dental/alveolar while flaps are retroflex. Also, these two sounds are different in direction of the movement; in taps we have a movement from up to down, and in flaps from back to front.

Trills are produced by the repeated tapping of one flexible articulator against the other. The dental/alveolar trill, [r], (e.g. Spanish perro [pero] “dog”) is one of the most common in languages of the world. Also note-worthy is the uvular trill, [R], which is found in German and in some varieties of French (e.g. [Ruʒ] “red”). In some other varieties of French (e.g. Parisian), this sound is a uvular fricative or approximant (e.g. [ʁuʒ] “red”). Sometimes a trill may be accompanied with friction. The Czech r-sound [r̝] is a good example of a voiced alveolar fricative trill (e.g. Dvorak [dvor̝ak]).