Plosive

In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a special kind of sound called a pulmonic consonant. These sounds happen when the airway in the mouth is blocked completely, so no airflow can pass through.

Plosives are made by closing the mouth in different ways. For example, the sounds t and d are made by blocking the air with the tip of the tongue. The sounds k and g use the middle of the tongue to block the air. The lips can also block air to make the sounds p and b. Even the voice box can close to make a special sound called ʔ.

These plosive sounds are different from other sounds like nasals, where the air flows through the nose, or fricatives, where the air is partly blocked but still flows through the mouth. Plosives are important in many languages around the world.

Terminology

Different words like "stop," "occlusive," and "plosive" are often used to mean the same thing. Some experts try to make small differences between these words, but they don’t always agree. "Stop" talks about stopping the air when we speak. "Occlusive" describes how we block the voice path to make the sound. "Plosive" refers to the burst of air that happens when we release the blocked air.

Some people don’t like using "plosive" for sounds that don’t have this burst of air, and they might call those sounds something else. Groups that study speech sounds, like the International Phonetic Association and the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association, use the word "plosive." In the past, ancient Greeks called these sounds "unpronounceable" because they couldn’t be said alone without a vowel. This idea later moved into Latin and then into English.

Articulation

A plosive is a special kind of sound made when we block the air in our mouth and then let it go. This happens in three steps: first, the parts of our mouth come together, then they stay together holding the air, and finally they open to let the air out.

Sometimes, we don’t have the first step if the sound comes after another sound that already blocks the air, like in the word "end." In some languages, like Malay and Vietnamese, the sound at the end of a word might not let the air out loudly, or it might let the air out through the nose. For more details, see no audible release.

Common plosives

All spoken languages have sounds called plosives, and most include the quiet sounds [p], [t], and [k]. However, some languages are exceptions. For example, everyday Samoan does not use the [t] sound, and several North American languages like Mohawk and Cherokee, as well as Arabic, do not use the [p] sound.

Some languages have very few plosives. Formal Samoan has just one word with the [k] sound, and everyday Samoan mixes the [t] and [k] sounds together. Niʻihau Hawaiian mostly uses [t] instead of [k], similar to Standard Hawaiian. Another language, Ontena Gadsup, has only one plosive sound /ʔ/. The language Yanyuwa has many different plosives in various positions, more than any other known language.

See Common occlusives for more information about these sounds and similar ones called nasals.

Classification

Voice

Voiced plosives are made with the voice box shaking, while voiceless plosives are made without it. Many languages, like Mandarin Chinese and Hawaiian, only use voiceless plosives. In some languages, such as most Australian languages, plosives can change between voiced and voiceless.

Aspiration

In aspirated plosives, a burst of air is released when the sound is made. In English, some sounds like the p in pie are aspirated, which means you can feel a puff of air when you say them.

Length

Some languages have long plosives, where the sound is held longer. For example, in Italian, the double t in Vittoria takes longer to say than the ct in Victoria. Japanese also uses long sounds, like in kita (came) and kitta (cut).

Nasalization

Plosives can sometimes include a nasal sound. For example, in English, words like candy start with a nasal sound before the plosive.

Airstream mechanism

Most plosives use air from the lungs to make the sound. Some languages also have special sounds made with air from the throat or mouth.

Tenseness

Some plosives are made with more tension in the muscles than others. This can change how the sound sounds, but it is hard to measure exactly.

Transcription

The following plosives have special symbols in the IPA.

English

Variations

We can show many types of plosives by adding marks to the basic IPA symbols.

Symbols for plosive consonants
⟨p⟩	voiceless bilabial plosive	⟨b⟩	voiced bilabial plosive
⟨t⟩	voiceless alveolar plosive	⟨d⟩	voiced alveolar plosive
⟨ʈ⟩	voiceless retroflex plosive	⟨ɖ⟩	voiced retroflex plosive
⟨c⟩	voiceless palatal plosive	⟨ɟ⟩	voiced palatal plosive
⟨k⟩	voiceless velar plosive	⟨ɡ⟩	voiced velar plosive
⟨q⟩	voiceless uvular plosive	⟨ɢ⟩	voiced uvular plosive
⟨ʡ⟩	epiglottal plosive
⟨ʔ⟩	glottal stop

[p t k]	voiceless, aspirated word-initially, tenuis in clusters after s, word-final often with no audible release
[b d ɡ]	unaspirated, partially voiced word-initially, fully voiced intervocalically, fully devoiced when word-final
[ʔ]	glottal stop, not as a phoneme in most dialects

Phonation and voice-onset time
⟨t⟩	voiceless	⟨d⟩	voiced
⟨t˭⟩	tenuis	⟨tʰ⟩	aspirated
		⟨dʱ⟩	breathy-voiced

Airstream mechanism
⟨t⟩		⟨d⟩	pulmonic egressive
⟨tʼ⟩	ejective	⟨ɗ⟩	implosive
⟨!⟩	click

Nasality
⟨ⁿd⟩	prenasalized	⟨dⁿ⟩	nasally released

⟨d̥⟩	lenis: ⟨d⟩ with voicelessness diacritic	⟨t͈⟩	tense	⟨tt dd⟩ ⟨tː dː⟩	geminate