Manner of articulation

A vowel () is a speech sound pronounced without any in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, loudness, and length. They are usually voiced and are closely involved in prosodic variation such as tone, intonation and stress. The nucleus, or "center", of a syllable typically consists of a vowel sound (though this is not always the case).

In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.

A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in the case of German (the final consonant of Bach); or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh (appearing twice in the name Llanelli). This turbulent airflow is called frication.

consonant pronounced by letting air escape through the nose but not through the mouth

An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. English has two affricate phonemes, and , generally spelled ch and j, respectively.

configuration and interaction of the articulators when making a speech sound

Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough, nor with enough articulatory precision, to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like (as in ) and semivowels like and (as in ' and ', respectively), as well as lateral approximants like (as in '''').

type of consonant

Sibilants (from ) are fricative and affricate consonants of higher amplitude and pitch. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words sip, zip, ship, and genre. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet used to denote the sibilant sounds in these words are, respectively, . Sibilants have a characteristically intense sound, which accounts for their paralinguistic use in getting one's attention (e.g. calling someone using "psst!" or quieting someone using "shhhh!").

consonants produced with a single muscle contraction

In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are sonorants, as are semivowels like and , nasals like and , and liquids (laterals and rhotics) like and . This set of sounds contrasts with the obstruents (stops, affricates and fricatives).

In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are y and w in yes and west, respectively. Written in IPA, y and w are near to the vowels ee and oo in seen and moon, written in IPA. The term glide may alternatively refer to any type of transitional sound, not necessarily a semivowel.

consonant sound in speech that is made by allowing air to escape from the mouth, as opposed to the nose