Obstruent
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| Manners of articulation |
|---|
| Obstruent |
| Stop |
| Affricate |
| Fricative |
| Sibilant |
| Sonorant |
| Nasal |
| Flaps/Tap |
| Trill |
| Approximant |
| Liquid |
| Vowel |
| Semivowel |
| Lateral |
| Airstreams |
| Ejective |
| Implosive |
| Click |
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An obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing airflow, causing increased air pressure in the vocal tract. In phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes: obstruents and sonorants.
Obstruents are those articulations in which there is either a total closure of the vocal tract, or a partial closure, i.e. a stricture causing friction, both groups being associated with a noise component.
Obstruents are subdivided into stops (with total closure followed by an "explosive" release of air – hence the equivalent term plosive), affricates (with at first a stop-like total closure, followed by a more controlled, fricative-style release, i.e. a stricture causing friction), and fricatives (with only limited closure, i.e. no more than a steady stricture causing friction). Obstruents are prototypically voiceless, though voiced obstruents are common. This contrasts with sonorants, which are much more rarely voiceless.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Ian Maddieson (1984). Patterns of Sounds. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-26536-3.
- Ladefoged, Peter; Ian Maddieson (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
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