Plosives

A plosive is a consonant articulation with the following characteristics:
1. One articulator is moved against another, or two articulators are moved against each other, so as to form astricture that allows no air to scape from the vocal tract. The stricture is then total.
2. After this stricture has been formed and air has been compressed behind it, it is released, that is ,air isallaowed to scape.
3. If the air behind the stricture is still under pressure when the plosive is released, it is probable that the scape of air will produce noise loud enough to be heard.thisnoise is called plosion.
4. There may be voicing during part or all the plosive articulation.
To give a complete definition of plosive consonant, we must describe what happends at each ofthe following four phases in its production:
i. The first phase is when the articulator or articulators move to form the stricture for the plosive.we call this the closure phase.
ii. Thesecond phase is when compressed air is stopped from escaping. We call this hold phase.
iii. The third phase is when the articulators used to form the stricture are moved so as to allow air toscape.
iv. The fourth phase is what happens immediately after iii, so we will call it the post-release phase.(explosion)
English has six plosive consonants, p, t, k, b, d,g. the glottal plosive occurs frecuently but it is less important.
/p/ consonant, plosive, bilabial, voiceless, fortis, oral, stop./t/consonant, plosive, alveolar, voiceless, fortis, oral, stop.
/k/ consonant, plosive, velar, voiceless, fortis, oral, stop
/b/ consonant, plosive,bilabial, voiced, lenis, oral, stop
/d/consonant, plosive, alveolar, voiced, lenis, oral, stop
/g/ consonant, plosive, velar, voiced, lenis, oral.stop...