obstruent

An obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing airflow, causing increased air pressure in the vocal tract. In phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes: obstruents and sonorants.

Obstruents are those articulations in which there is either a total closure of the vocal tract, or a partial closure, i.e. a stricture causing friction, both groups being associated with a noise component.

Obstruents are subdivided into stops (with total closure followed by an "explosive" release of air – hence the equivalent term plosive), affricates (with at first a stop-like total closure, followed by a more controlled, fricative-style release, i.e. a stricture causing friction), and fricatives (with only limited closure, i.e. no more than a steady stricture causing friction). Obstruents are prototypically voiceless, though voiced obstruents are common. This contrasts with sonorants, which are much more rarely voiceless.

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• Sonorant

References

• Ian Maddieson (1984). Patterns of Sounds. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-26536-3. 
• Ladefoged, Peter; Ian Maddieson (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8. 

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