In
phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
and
phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
, 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.
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 are sonorants, as are
semivowel
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 ...
s like and ,
nasal consonant
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majo ...
s like and , and
liquid consonant
In linguistics, a liquid consonant or simply liquid is any of a class of consonants that consists of rhotics and voiced lateral approximants, which are also sometimes described as "R-like sounds" and "L-like sounds". The word ''liquid'' seems ...
s like and . This set of sounds contrasts with the
obstruents (
stops,
affricates and
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).
For some authors, only the term ''resonant'' is used with this broader meaning, while ''sonorant'' is restricted to the consonantal subset—that is, nasals and liquids only, not
vocoids (vowels and semivowels).
Types
Whereas
obstruents are frequently
voiceless, sonorants are almost always voiced. In the
sonority hierarchy, all sounds higher than
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 are sonorants. They can therefore form the
nucleus of a
syllable
A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...
in languages that place that distinction at that level of sonority; see
Syllable
A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...
for details.
Sonorants contrast with
obstruents, which do stop or cause turbulence in the airflow. The latter group includes
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 and
stops (for example, and ).
Among consonants pronounced in the back of the mouth or in the throat, the distinction between an
approximant and a voiced fricative is so blurred that no language is known to contrast them. Thus,
uvular,
pharyngeal, and
glottal fricatives never contrast with approximants.
Voiceless
Voiceless sonorants are rare; they occur as
phoneme
A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
s in only about 5% of the world's languages. They tend to be extremely quiet and difficult to recognise, even for those people whose language has them.
In every case of a voiceless sonorant occurring, there is a contrasting voiced sonorant. In other words, whenever a language contains a phoneme such as , it also contains a corresponding voiced phoneme such as .
Voiceless sonorants are most common around the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
(in
Oceania
Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...
,
East Asia
East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...
, and
North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography.
Etymology
T ...
and
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
) and in certain language families (such as
Austronesian,
Sino-Tibetan,
Na-Dene and
Eskimo–Aleut).
One European language with voiceless sonorants is
Welsh. Its
phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
contains a phonemic
voiceless alveolar trill , along with three voiceless nasals: velar, alveolar and labial.
Another European language with voiceless sonorants is
Icelandic, with
̥ r̥ n̥ m̥ ɲ̊ ŋ̊for the corresponding voiced sonorants
r n m ɲ ŋ
Voiceless and possibly are hypothesized to have occurred in various dialects of
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
. The
Attic dialect of the
Classical period likely had as the regular allophone of at the beginning of words and possibly when it was doubled inside words. Hence, many
English words from Ancient Greek roots have ''rh'' initially and ''rrh'' medially: ''
rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...
'', ''
diarrhea''.
Examples
English has the following sonorant consonantal phonemes: .
Old Irish
Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic (, Ogham, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ; ; or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic languages, Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive written texts. It was used from 600 to 900. The ...
had one of the most complex sonorant systems recorded in linguistics, with 12 coronal sonorants alone.
Coronal laterals,
nasals, and
rhotics had a
fortis–lenis and a
palatalization contrast: . There were also and , making 16 sonorant phonemes in total.
Sound changes
Voiceless sonorants have a strong tendency to either revoice or undergo
fortition, for example to form a
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 ...
like or .
In connected, continuous speech in
North American English
North American English (NAmE) encompasses the English language as spoken in both the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar ...
, and are usually
flapped to following sonorants, including vowels, when followed by a vowel or syllabic .
See also
*
List of phonetics topics
*
Obstruent
*
Continuant
In phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech ...
*
Liquid consonant
In linguistics, a liquid consonant or simply liquid is any of a class of consonants that consists of rhotics and voiced lateral approximants, which are also sometimes described as "R-like sounds" and "L-like sounds". The word ''liquid'' seems ...
References
Bibliography
*
{{Authority control
Manner of articulation