What is the name of the property of what part of the tongue produces the sound?

Question

For consonants, IPA describes 'place of articulation': the part of the mouth the tongue makes contact with, and 'manner of articulation': how the sound is produced there.

Speakers may use the blades of their tongues or the tips of their tongues for different sounds. There may be more terminology/parts of the tongue I don't know the name of.

What's the name of this property?

In the same way 'place of articulation' is the name of the property of contact point, or 'height' is the name of the property of the vertical position of the tongue/jaw when producing vowels.

Answer 1

Those are called active places of articulation. The places of articulation that appear on the IPA chart are more specifically referred to as passive places of articulation.

Common active places (and common passive counterparts) are:

• Coronal (dental, alveolar, postalveolar)
  • Apical – tongue tip
  • Laminal – tongue blade
  • Subapical or sublaminal – underside of the tongue tip (palatal; "retroflex", when used in the narrow sense, is another way of saying subapical/sublaminal palatal)
• Dorsal – body of the tongue (palatal, velar, uvular)
• Radical – root of the tongue (pharyngeal)

When precision is desired, some use e.g. "dorso-velar" or "dorsal velar" instead of just "velar".