Obstruent

An obstruent is a speech sound such as [k], [d͡ʒ], or [f] that is formed by obstructing airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate.[1] All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include both vowels and consonants.

Manners of articulation
Airstreams
See also

Subclasses

Obstruents are subdivided into plosives (oral stops), such as [p, t, k, b, d, ɡ], with complete occlusion of the vocal tract, often followed by a release burst; fricatives, such as [f, s, ʃ, x, v, z, ʒ, ɣ], with limited closure, not stopping airflow but making it turbulent; and affricates, which begin with complete occlusion but then release into a fricative-like release, such as [t͡ʃ] and [d͡ʒ].[2]

Voicing

Obstruents are prototypically voiceless, but voiced obstruents are common. This contrasts with sonorants, which are prototypically voiced and only rarely voiceless.

See also
  • List of phonetics topics

References
  1. Gussenhoven, Carlos; Haike, Jacobs. Understanding Phonology, Fourth Edition, Routledge, 2017
  2. Zsiga, Elizabeth. The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
  • Ian Maddieson (1984). Patterns of Sounds. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-26536-3.
  • Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.