Inphonetics andphonology, adental stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the tongue in contact with the upper teeth (hencedental), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence astop consonant).[1]
Dental andalveolar stops are often conflated.[2] Acoustically, the two types of sounds are similar, and it is rare for a language to have both types, though there are languages which have both and in which they arephonemic, such as in theBengali spoken inBangladesh (as opposed to that spoken inWest Bengal). Speakers of mainstream Irish English generally use dental stops in place of the dental fricatives[θ] and[ð]. TheInternational Phonetic Alphabet does not provide separate symbols for dental stops, but simply uses the diacriticU+032A ◌̪COMBINING BRIDGE BELOW attached to the corresponding alveolar symbol.[citation needed] As a result, it is common for researchers working in the majority of languages with only one type or the other to simply use the alveolar symbols indifferently for both types, unless they specifically want to call attention to the distinction.
The most common sounds are the stops[t̪] and[d̪]. More generally, several kinds are distinguished:[3]
