1.- Lateral liquid: it refers to any sound where the air escapes around one or both sides of a closure made in the mouth, as in the various types of /l/ sounds.
/l/The soft palate being in its raised position shutting off the nasal resonator, the tip of the tongue is in contact with the upper teeth ridge, allowing the air to escape on both sides or, in the case of a unilateral tongue-rim closure on the upper side teeth, on one side.
2.- Approximant liquid: This is a phonetic term of comparatively recent origin. It is used to denote a consonant which makes very little obstruction to the airflow. In English the consonant that has this manner of articulation is / ɾ/ and this phoneme is used such in American accent as British accent. The former replace the /d/ and /t/ intervocalically, e.g. botter and body. The latter replace it just the /d/, for instance anybody, added. However, in British accent usually is used in informal contexts
American accent ----- v/s----- British accent
Butter / bʌɾ.ər/-------------- / bʌt.ə/
Body / bɑː.ɾi/ --------------- /ˈbɒ. ɾi/ (informal)
/ ɾ/The tip of the tongue produces
a flapped articulation or a rapid contact against the alveolar ridge and returned to the postiong of rest
3.-Retroflex liquid: it refers to a sound made when the tip of the tongue is curled back in the direction of the front part of the hard palate – in other words, just behind the alveolar ridge.
/r/The soft palate being raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the tip of the tongue is held in a position near to, but not touching, the rear part if the uppper teeth ridge; the centrarl part of the tongue is lawered, with a general contraction of the tongue, so that the effect of the tongue position is one of hollowing and slight retroflexion of the lip. The air-stream is thus allowed to escape freely, without friction, over the centre part of the tongue. The lip position is determined by that of the following vowel.
