Buccal

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Buccal consonants are pronounced from the velum onwards; this comprises all labial, coronal and dorsal places of articulation. As such, they are a class of "typical" consonants. It contrasts with guttural (comprising the radical and glottal POAs).

Nasal stops such as [m] can only be pronounced at buccal POAs. Phonation contrasts, while some are possible even for guttural consonants, are also typically limited to buccal consonants.

Debuccalization refers to the change from a buccal consonant to a glottal. There is room for variation (eg. *ɟʱ, *gʱ → [ɦ] in Sanskrit), but typically stops will end up as [ʔ], fricatives as [h]. The opposite change is buccalization; typically the result will be a velar (eg. *ʔ → k, *h → x). (The term glottalization is usually only applied to changes resulting in [ʔ] or glottalized consonants.)

The buccal/guttural division is not applied to vowels.

This article is part of a series on Phonetics and Phonology. Affricate * Allophone * Aspiration * Bilabial consonant * Buccal * Coronal consonant * Dental consonant * Fricative * Heng * Manner of articulation * Obligatory Contour Principle * Palatalization-split * Phoneme * Phoneme hole * Phonological feature * Rhotacism * Spirant * Stop * Syllable structure * Velar consonant * * Phonetic alphabets * Phonetic Segments