An Introduction to French Pronunciation

18 The Production of Speech
is the ridge, very easily felt with the tongue or a finger,
immediately behind the upper teeth; it could equally well be
considered as the front edge of the hard palate.
2.5.3 As mentioned above (2.4.3), ‘palate’ as a term of
phonetics refers only to the hard palate.
2.6 Terminology
2.6.1 It is convenient to have a set of adjectives to refer to
the various articulators; the following (all of them derived
from Latin) are in common use in works on phonetics:
Name of articulator Corresponding adjective
tongue lingual
lip(s) labial
velum velar
uvula uvular
teeth dental
teeth-ridge (alveoli) alveolar
palate palatal
2.6.2 With reference to sounds for which the tongue is an
active articulator, it is usual to use the adjective corresponding
only to the other articulator, e.g. a /k/ that is pronounced
by raising the tongue until it makes contact with the velum
(see 14.4.3) is generally referred to as velar rather than linguovelar
(which, strictly speaking, would be more accurate). But
when the tongue is not involved, reference is made to both
articulators, in particular in the use of the term bilabial for
/p/ and /b/ which are pronounced with both lips (see 14.4.1),
and labio-dental for /f/ and /v/ which have the lower lip as
an active articulator and the top teeth as a passive articulator
(see 15.3.1).