Obstruent Explained

An obstruent is a speech sound such as pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, or pronounced as /link/ that is formed by obstructing airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate.^[1] All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as consonants.

Subclasses

Obstruents are subdivided into:

• plosives (oral stops), such as pronounced as /[p, t, k, b, d, ɡ]/, with complete occlusion of the vocal tract, often followed by a release burst;
• fricatives, such as pronounced as /[f, ɸ, θ, s, ʃ, x, v, β, z, ʒ, ɣ]/, 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 pronounced as /[t͡ʃ] and [d͡ʒ]/.^[2]

Voicing

Obstruents are often prototypically voiceless, but voiced obstruents are common. This contrasts with sonorants, which are prototypically voiced and only rarely phonemically voiceless.^[3]

See also

• List of phonetics topics

References

• Book: Ian Maddieson. Ian Maddieson. Patterns of Sounds. Cambridge University Press. 1984. 0-521-26536-3.

Notes and References

1. Gussenhoven, Carlos; Haike, Jacobs. Understanding Phonology, Fourth Edition, Routledge, 2017
2. Zsiga, Elizabeth. The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
3. Blevins . Juliette . Evolutionary phonology and the life cycle of voiceless sonorants . Typological Studies in Language . 2018 . 121 . 31-58 . 10.1075/tsl.121.01ble.