Dental

From KneeQuickie

Dental consonants are those articulated with the tongue against the teeth. Most commonly, the tongue touches the back of the upper teeth; sounds articulated with the tongue between the teeth are called interdentals, but rarely need to be distinguished from dentals.

In the IPA, only the dental fricatives have their own symbols; other dental consonants share their symbols with alveolar and post-alveolar consonants. (See also coronal.) This is mostly because fricatives are more sensitive to a change in place of articulation; also, though, /θ/ and /ð/ really stand for dental non-sibilant fricatives, and /s/ and /z/ for sibilants; /s/ and /z/ are pronounced as dental sibilants in many languages, such as Spanish.

The situation with clicks is even more complex. To save repetition, I have discussed the matter in a separate article: see coronal clicks.

Other than /θ/ and /ð/, all dental consonants are represented in the IPA by adding the dental diacritic to the symbol for the coronal consonant.