Alveolar stop

The upcoming vowel target is adjusted to demand force and effort during the coarticulating process. More generally, several kinds are distinguished:

• , voiceless alveolar plosive
• , voiced alveolar plosive
• , voiced alveolar nasal
• , voiceless alveolar nasal
• , alveolar ejective
• , voiced alveolar implosive
• or voiceless alveolar implosive (very rare)

Note that alveolar and dental stops are not always carefully distinguished. Acoustically, the two types of sounds are similar, and it is rare for a language to have both types.

If necessary, an alveolar consonant can be transcribed with the combining equals sign below ⟨⟩, as with ⟨⟩ for the voiceless alveolar stop. A dental consonant can be transcribed with the combining bridge below ⟨⟩, and a postalveolar consonant with the retraction diacritic, the combining minus sign below ⟨⟩.