Coronal
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Coronal consonants are those articulated with the tongue in the front part of the mouth. "Coronal" is therefore a general term, covering dental, alveolar, postalveolar, alveolo-palatal and retroflex consonants.
Coronal consonants are often considered together; for instance, the IPA only has a separate symbol for each place of articulation in the case of the coronal fricatives. This is because fricatives are more sensitive to small changes in place of articulation, so it is much easier for a language to distinguish (for instance) /s/ and /ʃ/ than alveolar and postalveolar /t/.
The coronal place of articulation is one of the most used; coronal consonants are present in all natlangs. If a language has just one coronal series, it will almost always be dental or alveolar; some languages even contrast dental and alveolar consonants. Many languages have a retroflex series separate from the main coronal series.
The IPA has the following symbols for coronal consonants. Retroflex consonants are omitted, as they are written in the IPA simply by modifying the basic coronal consonant symbol with a "retroflex hook"; in X-Sampa, the equivalent of this is the retroflex diacritic `. Clicks are also omitted, as they are dealt with in a separate article: coronal clicks.
| IPA | X-Sampa | |
| Unvoiced plosive | /t/ | /t/ |
| Voiced plosive | /d/ | /d/ |
| Unvoiced fricatives | /θ s ʃ ɕ/ | /T s S s\/ |
| Voiced fricatives | /ð z ʒ ʑ/ | /D z Z z\/ |
| Voiced nasal stop | /n/ | /n/ |
| Voiced trill | /r/ | /r/ |
| Voiced tap or flap | /ɾ/ | /4/ |
| Voiced approximant | /ɹ/ | /r\/ |
| Unvoiced lateral fricative | /ɬ/ | /K/ |
| Voiced lateral fricative | /ɮ/ | /K\/ |
| Voiced lateral approximant | /l/ | /l/ |
Other than the fricatives, all these consonants are normally assumed to be alveolar unless specified otherwise. The X-Sampa diacritic to specify a consonant as dental is _d; to move a coronal consonant to postalveolar, the "retracted" diacritic _- is used. Alveolo-palatal consonants can be written by modifying the corresponding retroflex consonant with the "laminal" diacritic _m.
In Z-Sampa, there is a separate symbol, /d\/ for the coronal flap, in case it is necessary to distinguish it from the tap. There are additionally symbols for the following sounds:
- Unvoiced lateral and central fricative: /S\/
- Voiced lateral and central fricative: /Z\/
- Nareal fricative: /n_:/
Z-Sampa also offers a diacritic, _a\, to specify a sound as alveolar; since all coronal sounds except fricatives are assumed to be alveolar by default, this is really only useful for the alveolar click (/|\_a\/ or /t_a\_!/), the alveolar non-sibilant fricatives (/T_a\/ unvoiced and /D_a\/ voiced), and labioalveolars.
