An obstruent ( ) is a
speech sound such as , , or that is
formed by ''obstructing''
airflow
Airflow, or air flow, is the movement of air. Air behaves in a fluid manner, meaning particles naturally flow from areas of higher pressure to those where the pressure is lower. Atmospheric air pressure is directly related to altitude, temperat ...
. Obstruents contrast with
sonorant
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 a ...
s, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
s, but sonorants include
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
s as well as consonants.
Subclasses
Obstruents are subdivided into:
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plosives (oral stops), such as , with complete occlusion of the vocal tract, often followed by a release burst;
*
fricative
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 ...
s, such as , with limited closure, not stopping airflow but making it turbulent;
*
affricate
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 pai ...
s, which begin with complete occlusion but then release into a fricative-like release, such as .
Voicing
Obstruents are often prototypically
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
, but voiced obstruents are common. This contrasts with sonorants, which are prototypically voiced and only rarely
phonemically voiceless.
See also
*
List of phonetics topics
References
Bibliography
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Obstruents
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