Practice question · Numerical answer
How many places of articulation does English use for its consonants?
Hints
- Count from the lips back to the glottis.
- Bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, postalveolar, palatal, velar, glottal.
Show the answer
8
Why
Eight. The inventory is unremarkable cross-linguistically, many languages use fewer, and some use retroflex and uvular places that English lacks entirely. What is unusual about English is not its places but its two dental fricatives.
Practise Classifying Consonants
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More questions on Classifying Consonants
- Why is the label "voiceless alveolar plosive" a set of instructions rather than a name?
- Arrange these manners of articulation from the most complete obstruction of the airstream to the least.
- Roughly what percentage of the world's languages have dental fricatives like the two th sounds of English?
- Which are true of approximants?
- Complete the classification.
- A student assumes that because /m/ and /p/ are both bilabial consonants, the vocal tract is closed entirely…
- Match each place of articulation to the articulators involved.