Apical consonant

An apical consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the tip of the tongue (apex) in conjunction with upper articulators from lips to postalveolar, and possibly prepalatal.

[1][2] It contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue, just behind the tip.

[1][4] As there is some laminal contact in the alveolar region, the apicolaminal dental consonants are also labelled as denti-alveolar.

A distinction between apical and laminal is common in Australian Aboriginal languages for nasals, plosives and (usually) lateral approximants.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the diacritic for apical consonants is U+033A ◌̺ COMBINING INVERTED BRIDGE BELOW.

Schematic linguograms of 1) apical, 2) upper apical, 3) laminal and 4) apicolaminal stops based on Dart (1991 :16), illustrating the areas of the tongue in contact with the palate during articulation (shown in grey)