palato-alveolar consonant

linguistics

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July 1, 2026

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A palato-alveolar consonant is a speech sound produced by raising the tongue blade towards the area behind the alveolar ridge (gums) and towards the hard palate. This articulation is positioned between the alveolar and palatal sounds. While English does not have purely palatal consonants, sounds like "sh" in "ship" and "zh" in "azure" are classified as palato-alveolar. These sounds are made with a pulmonic airstream, meaning the air is expelled from the lungs. The term "palato-alveolar" describes a specific place of articulation in phonetics.1234

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Romance languages
Consonants
…a number of palatal and palato-alveolar consonants which did not exist in Latin. (Palatal consonants are formed with the tongue touching the hard palate; palato-alveolar sounds are made with the tongue touching the region of the alveolar ridge or the palate.) One consequence of the strengthening of the stress accent…
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…a number of palatal and palato-alveolar consonants which did not exist in Latin. (Palatal consonants are formed with the tongue touching the hard palate; palato-alveolar sounds are made with the tongue touching the region of the alveolar ridge or the palate.) One consequence of the strengthening of the stress accent…
Read More