Languages & Linguistics
Sonorants
Sonorants are a group of speech sounds that are produced with a relatively open vocal tract, allowing for resonance. They include vowels, nasals, liquids, and glides. Sonorants are characterized by their sonority, or acoustic energy, and are often contrasted with obstruents, which are produced with a more constricted vocal tract. In many languages, sonorants play a crucial role in syllable structure and phonological processes.
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eBook - PDFTurbulent Sounds
An Interdisciplinary Guide
- Susanne Fuchs, Martine Toda, Marzena Zygis, Susanne Fuchs, Martine Toda, Marzena Zygis(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
This means that stops, affricates and fricatives – those sounds formed with more radical constrictions than the glides – are considered to be obstruents, i.e. [–sonorant], whereas vowels, glides, nasals and liquids are sonorant, i.e. [+sonorant]. 1 The reader is referred to the Appendix for a list of the features we discuss in the present article. 2 According to a second definition (Halle and Clements 1983: 6) sonorant sounds “are produced with a vocal tract configuration sufficiently open [so] that the air pressure inside and outside the mouth is approximately equal. Obstruent sounds are produced with a vocal tract configuration sufficient to increase the air pressure inside the mouth significantly over that of the ambient air.” Apparently both the latter definition and the one from SPE make the same predictions concerning natural classes. Since the Halle and Clements’s (1983) definition of [sonorant] seems to be the most widely accepted one among phonologists, it is the definition we adopt in the present study. 3 It is usually assumed that the definition for obstruents correlates with their phonological behaviour in the sense that sounds like /p t k/, etc., are obstruents from the point of view of phonetics (i.e. they fit one or both of An overview of the phonology of obstruents 3 the definitions given above), but also from the point of view of phonology by patterning as [–sonorant] segments. A number of linguists have pointed to segments in various languages in which this correlation does not hold. One logical possibility involves sounds which are phonetically obstruents but which nevertheless pattern phonologically as if they were Sonorants, while the mirror image situation obtains if phonetic Sonorants pattern phonologically as obstruents. In the remainder of this section we briefly discuss examples illustrating the former case. Examples of phonetic obstruents patterning with Sonorants are discussed by Rice (1993), who dubs such sounds ‘sonorant obstruents’.
eBook - PDF- Martin J. Ball, Nicole Muller(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
The less obstruction there is to the airflow. the more sonorous the resultant sound. This gives llS two main groupings: the Sonorants (sonorous sounds) and the obstruents (the sounds with obstructions to the airflow). Sonorants cover the various approximant types, liquids and glides, and the nasal stops (and, indeed, the vowels). Obstruents are plosive stops, fricatives, and affricates. It is not always clear whether the trills and taps are Sonorants (like the other rhotics) or obstruents (like the other stops): for our purposes we will assign them to the obstruents. Nasal stops are Sonorants because, although there is a complete closure in the oral cavity, the air flows through the nasal cavity without obstruction. Such a broad division is sometimes useful phonetically. For example, it may help explain the patterns of voicing we see in the consonants of the world's languages. Obstruents are more commonly voiceless than voiced, because air pressure is expended during voicing that is needed to make obstruent sOllnds long and clear. On the other hand, sonorant sounds are more commonly found voiced than voiceless, and this is because the laminar (smooth) airflow needs the addition of voice to make the resultant sound loud enough. The interrelation of the two categorization systems can be seen in the following diagram: plosive stops nasal stops afJiicates fricatives liquids glides Sonorants obslruents 13,A.CKGHOUND f{EADING The standard texts referred to in previous chapters will also provide further reading on this topic. The examples of consonants in various languages are from the sources listed in chapter 5. ARTICULATION: CONSONANT MANNER lYPES 73 EXERCISES Review Questions 1. Define the terms stop, fricative, and approximwlt. What is the main characteristic distin-guishing them? 2. Describe the three stages of the production of a plosive.
eBook - PDF- Tadeusz Milewski, M. Brochwicz(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
5. THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM 45 lungs is released through this constriction and the friction of the air stream against the walls produces the particular murmur which characterizes this consonant. In the case of spirants, the speech apparatus functions like a whistle, as is particularly striking in the articulation of the consonant s. Consonants such as r, I, m, n, called sonants, have a still broader articulation. In the pronunciation of r, the wide channel through which air is released from the lungs is opened and closed at short intervals by the vibration of the tip of the tongue. In the articulation of 1, the tip of the tongue is pressed against the upper alveolar ridge while its lateral sides are lowered completely. Finally, in the articulation of the nasal consonants m and n, the oral cavity is completely closed off and air is released through the nose. Thus, all of the consonants just discussed are sonants, but each in a different way. Sonority is their common feature. In the pronunciation of sonants, the vocal chords in the larynx are normally drawn together and air, released by pressure from the lungs, sets the chords into vibration, setting up waves in particles of air and thus producing an effect of sonority. Stops and spirants may be either voiceless {p, t, k, f , s, x), i-e., pronounced with the vocal chords drawn apart, or voiced ( b , d, g, v, z, y), i.e., produced with the vocal chords drawn tightly together. The sonants are normally voiced. Normally, vowels articulated with the mouth more or less open are also voiced. The articulation of a involves the broadest opening of the mouth, o and e, medium, and u and i, the least. Thus, the oral cavity forms a resonant chamber the shape of which, different in the production of each vowel, gives the vowels their particular acoustical character.
eBook - PDF- Alan Cruttenden(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Hindi. Second, where they do involve the body of the tongue, the articulations represent only brief glides to a following vowel: thus [j] in yet is a glide starting from the [i] region and [w] in wet is a glide starting from the [u] region. 4.3.5 Obstruents and Sonorants It is sometimes found useful to classify categories of sounds according to their noise component. Those in whose production the constriction impeding the air- flow through the vocal tract is sufficient to cause noise are known as OBSTRUENTS. This category comprises plosives, fricatives and affricates. Sonorants are those voiced sounds in which there is no noise component i.e. voiced nasals, approximants and vowels. 4.3.6 Fortis and lenis A voiceless/voiced pair such as English Is,zl are distinguished not only by the presence or absence ofvoice but also by the degree ofbreath and muscular effort involved in their articulation. Those English consonants which are usually voiced tend to be articulated with relatively weak energy (they are LENIS), whereas those which are always voiceless are relatively strong (they are FORTIS). Indeed, we shall see that in certain situations, the so-called voiced consonants may have very little voicing, so that the energy of articulation becomes a significant factor in distinguishing the voiced and voiceless series. 32 Language and speech 4.3.7 Classifieation of consonants The chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)3 (see Table 1) shows manner of articulation on the vertical axis; place of articulation on the horizontal axis; and a pairing within each box thus created shows voiceless consonants on the left and voiced consonants on the right. 4.3.8 Ingressive pu/monie consonants Consonants of this type, made as we are breathing in, sometimes occur in lan- guages as variants of their egressive pulmonic equivalents.
eBook - PDF- Ralph W. Fasold, Jeff Connor-Linton(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
During all vowel sounds, however, the vocal tract is relatively wide open, and air fl ows out freely. Oral stops, fricatives, and affricates together form a class of sounds called obstruents , because they make noise by obstructing the air fl ow in the vocal tract, causing a burst of sound as a closure is released or a hissing sound as the air passes through a narrow constriction. Nasal stops, approximants, and vowels (anything that ’ s not an obstruent) form a class of sounds called Sonorants . They make audible sounds not by obstructing the air fl ow, but by letting the air resonate. Sonorant sounds are almost always voiced. The vibration of the vocal folds causes the air inside the vocal tract to vibrate. If the vibration is strong enough, it produces an audible sound, like the ringing of a bell. Different vocal tract shapes (which we control by moving the active articulators) produce different patterns of vibration, which we hear as different sounds (more on this below). It is possible to produce voiceless Sonorants, by moving a large volume of air through the open vocal tract. Languages like Hmong and Burmese use voiceless nasals. Listen carefully, and you ’ ll hear that the [l] in an English word like play is also voiceless. Writing sounds: transcription Before we discuss the different places of articulation used in English and other languages, we have to consider how to write down different sounds. Descriptive phrases like “ the sound at the beginning of the word yell ” or “ in the middle of achoo ” are cumbersome. We need a phonetic alphabet . Writing down sounds using a phonetic alphabet is called phonetic transcription . In 1888, the International Phonetic Association (based in Paris) tackled the problem of how to precisely describe any sound the members might encounter in their efforts to 22 Elizabeth Zsiga
eBook - ePub- Linda Lombardi(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Taylor & Francis(Publisher)
CHAPTER 4 LARYNGEAL PHONOLOGY OF Sonorants 4.1 Laryngeal features of Sonorants 4.1.1 Sonorants and [voice] Both empirical and theoretical considerations lead to the conclusion that Sonorants are not marked with the feature [voice] underlyingly. The theoretical considerations have to do with the theory of underspecification: voicing is predictable in Sonorants, and therefore [voice] is redundant and should not be marked. There are also phonological facts that require that Sonorants be unspecified for [voice]. A well-known example is Lyman’s Law in Japanese (see Ito and Mester 1986). The initial consonant of the second member of a compound becomes voiced by the rule of Rendaku (1a). This rule is blocked if the second word contains a voiced obstruent (1b), but is not blocked by the presence of a sonorant (1c): (1) Of course another type of example that shows that Sonorants are unspecified for [voice] is the phenomenon of voicing assimilation discussed in the previous chapters, where [voice] does not spread from Sonorants, and in cases such as Polish we can see that Sonorants are actually transparent to the spread of [voice]. Another case that shows that Sonorants cannot be marked [voice] in the phonology comes from Burmese (Okell 1969). Burmese has voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops, and voiced and aspirated Sonorants. There is a process of voicing the initial of the second member of a compound, and a noun can be derived from a verb by voicing the initial consonant. Voiceless and voiceless aspirated obstruents can undergo voicing, so for instance /k h / becomes /g/, as does /k/. The rule presumably links [voice] to the consonant, and if [asp] is present it deletes, since the two features cannot cooccur in this language. However, the aspirated Sonorants do not undergo this rule–there is no change in them in this position. This is evidence that it would be impossible to link [voice] to a sonorant without creating an ill-formed representation
eBook - PDF- Steve Parker(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Articulatory bases of sonority in English liquids 291 Many phonetic grounds for sonority have been proposed in the literature, the most common being supralaryngeal aperture or a closely related concept (see Parker (2011) for a review). We take this as our working understanding of the phonetic basis for the traditional view of sonority. However, it is not clear how this perspective on sonority illuminates restrictions on vowel-liquid sequences – phonotactic constraints that could be expected to fall within sonority’s scope. Given this shortcoming, as well as the difficulties in finding a unitary basis for the diverse class of liquids, we sidestep pursuing a grounding for sonority in this vein and return to this issue later. We seek instead to find insights about sonority relationships by investigating the articulatory characteristics of liquids and nu-clear vowels in General American English (GAE). The hypothesis we explore is that the high sonority of English liquids derives from their vowel-like articula-tion of the tongue body (Delattre and Freeman 1968; Sproat and Fujimura 1993; Harris 1994), and that asymmetries in the sonority of rhotics and laterals arise in part from differences in tongue shaping and gestural coordination. We test these hypotheses by examining liquid production by three speakers of American English using real-time Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rtMRI). We suggest that better insights into the concept of sonority can be gained by taking into account various aspects of consonantal and vocalic articulation and coarticulation. This chapter is organized as follows. In section 2 we discuss distributional restrictions found in syllables of GAE with post-vocalic liquids, which consti-tute the phonotactic phenomena to be explained. In section 3, we briefly review research on the production of liquids in English rimes and some analyses of their organization into syllable structure.
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