The Place of Constriction of the air flow through the vocal tract is one distinctive feature for consonants.
The four Distinctive Features for Consonants, that I have selected to discuss, include the Place of Articulation, the Manner, the inclusion of larynx (plus or minus voicing) and the inclusion of nasal resonance (plus or minus nasality resonance).
- Place of Articulation. The hallmark of a consonant is the constriction of the airflow somewhere on the vocal tract. This constriction creates a noise, as we discussed earlier.
- There are certain locations along the oral tract (phonemic boundaries) where constriction has the potential to create a different phoneme. These locations can be described from front to back. Different languages select some boundaries that are the same and others that are different.
- In English the most forward constriction boundary is the two lips (e.g., the bilabial "B").