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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