CONSONANTS: RETROFLEX

A retroflex is a consonant formed when the tongue rises toward the roof of the mouth and then retracts toward the back of the oral cavity. Present-Day English has one retroflex, which is voiced (vocal cords vibrating during the articulation of the retroflex). (The retroflex, the lateral /l/, the nasals, and the semivowels /w/ and /j/ are sometimes called the resonants.)

1. /r/ (the phoneme spelled r in root): (voiced) alveolar retroflex.

 

Retroflex consonant

Retroflex consonants cover two points of articulation. They are articulated in the postalveolar-palatal region, but are either apical or sub-apical, rather than laminal as the postalveolar and palatal consonants are. That is, in a retroflex articulation, either the tip of the tongue touches the postalveolar region (in Mandarin Chinese and Hindi), or it curls back so that the underside of the tip touches the roof of the mouth in the postalveolar-palatal region (in Tamil). Retroflex consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

Note: In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the symbols for retroflex consonants are typically the same as for the alveolar consonants, but with the addition of a right-facing hook to the bottom of the symbol. Some linguists restrict these symbols for the "true" retroflex consonants with sub-apical palatal articulation, and use the alveolar symbols with the obsolete underdot symbol for an apical post-alveolar articulation: . Another solution, more in keeping with the official IPA, would be to use the rhotic diacritic for the apical retroflexes: .

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