Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants).
Among the fricatives and affricates, a subtype called palato-alveolar consonants (see below) have IPA symbols as shown in the table. The alveolo-palatal and retroflex consonants are also postalveolar in their point of articulation, but they are given separate columns in the IPA chart, and illustrated with examples in their own articles.
Alveolo-palatals and palatoalveolars are commonly grouped as palatals in phonology, since these categories rarely contrast with true palatals.
The palato-alveolar sibilants and postalveolar clicks identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
| IPA | Description | Example | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Orthography | IPA | Meaning | ||
| Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative | English | ship | [ʃɪp] | ship | |
| Voiced palato-alveolar fricative | English | vision | [vɪʒən] | vision | |
| Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate | English | chip | [tʃɪp] | chip | |
| Voiced palato-alveolar affricate | English | jug | [dʒʌɡ] | jug | |
| Apical (post)alveolar click release | Nama | !oas | [k͡!oas] | hollow | |
| Laminal postalveolar click release | !Kung | ǂua | [k͡ǂwa] | to imitate | |
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