obstruent
Sign in to saveAn obstruent ( ) is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by obstructing airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as consonants.
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Encyclopedic overview
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- Subclasses
- Voicing
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An obstruent ( ) is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by obstructing airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as consonants.
== Subclasses == Obstruents are subdivided into: plosives (oral stops), such as , with complete occlusion of the vocal tract, often followed by a release burst; fricatives, such as , with limited closure, not stopping airflow but making it turbulent; affricates, which begin with complete occlusion but then release into a fricative-like release, such as .
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “obstruent” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.