Consonant speech sounds formed with a constriction between the tongue tip and the alveolar ridge (a ridge located just behind the upper central incisors). There are two main forms that this sound can take: fricatives (airstream directed through a narrow constriction in the vocal tract resulting in turbulent airflow and a noisy sound), and plosives (airflow from the lungs interrupted by complete closure in the mouth resulting in a build-up of air pressure and an abrupt release of the airstream). Lingua-alveolar fricatives can occur as voiceless as /s/ in stop and class, and also as voiced in, for example, /z/ in zebra and is. The same applies to lingua-alveolar plosives: /t/ as in top and must being voiceless and /d/ in dog and troubled being voiced. In English, consonants are acquired in a front-to-back manner, with plosives being used before fricatives (viz., during babbling). Then there also lingua-alveolar liquids: vowel-like sounds produced with an open vocal tract as in /l/ and /r/.
See Babbling, Bilabial, Clicks, Consonants, Fricative, Glottal, Labio-dental, Lateral sound, Liquid, Lingua-velar (or velar), Lingua-dental (or dental), Plosive, Rhotic sound