An obstruent ( ) is a
speech sound
In phonetics (a branch of linguistics), a phone is any distinct speech sound. It is any surface-level or unanalyzed sound of a language, the smallest identifiable unit occurring inside a stream of speech. In spoken human language, a phone is thus ...
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:
*
plosives
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.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
(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
A
* Acoustic phonetics
* Active articulator
* Affricate
* Airstream mechanism
* Alexander John Ellis
* Alexander Melville Bell
* Alfred C. Gimson
* Allophone
* Alveolar approximant ()
* Alveolar click ()
* Alveolar consonant
* Alveolar e ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
Obstruents
{{phonetics-stub