Sonorant

Inphoneticsandphonology,asonorantorresonantis aspeech soundthat isproducedwith continuous, non-turbulent airflow in thevocal tract;these are the manners of articulation that are most oftenvoicedin the world's languages.Vowelsare sonorants, as aresemivowelslike[j]and[w],nasal consonantslike[m]and[n],andliquid consonantslike[l]and[r].This set of sounds contrasts with theobstruents(stops,affricatesandfricatives).^[1]

For some authors, only the termresonantis used with this broader meaning, whilesonorantis restricted to the consonantal subset—that is, nasals and liquids only, notvocoids(vowels and semivowels).^[2]

Types

Whereasobstruentsare frequentlyvoiceless,sonorants are almost always voiced. In thesonority hierarchy,all sounds higher thanfricativesare sonorants. They can therefore form thenucleusof asyllablein languages that place that distinction at that level of sonority; seeSyllablefor details.

Sonorants contrast withobstruents,which do stop or cause turbulence in the airflow. The latter group includesfricativesandstops(for example,/s/and/t/).

Among consonants pronounced in the back of the mouth or in the throat, the distinction between anapproximantand a voiced fricative is so blurred that no language is known to contrast them.^{[citation needed]}Thus,uvular,pharyngeal,andglottalfricatives never contrast with approximants.

Voiceless

Voiceless sonorants are rare; they occur asphonemesin only about 5% of the world's languages.^[3]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/ʍ/,it also contains a corresponding voiced phoneme such as/w/.^{[citation needed]}

Voiceless sonorants are most common around thePacific Ocean(inOceania,East Asia,andNorthandSouth America) and in certain language families (such asAustronesian,Sino-Tibetan,Na-DeneandEskimo–Aleut).

One European language with voiceless sonorants isWelsh.Itsphonologycontains a phonemicvoiceless alveolar trill/r̥/,along with three voiceless nasals: velar, alveolar and labial.

Another European language with voiceless sonorants isIcelandic,with [l̥ r̥ n̥ m̥ ɲ̊ ŋ̊] for the corresponding voiced sonorants [l r n m ɲ ŋ].

Voiceless[r̥l̥ʍ]and possibly[m̥n̥]are hypothesized to have occurred in various dialects ofAncient Greek.TheAttic dialectof theClassical periodlikely had[r̥]as the regular allophone of/r/at the beginning of words and possibly when it was doubled inside words. Hence, manyEnglish words from Ancient Greek rootshaverhinitially andrrhmedially:rhetoric,diarrhea.

Examples

Englishhas the following sonorant consonantal phonemes:/l/,/m/,/n/,/ŋ/,/ɹ/,/w/,/j/.^[4]

Old Irishhad one of the most complex sonorant systems recorded in linguistics, with 12 coronal sonorants alone.Coronal laterals,nasals,andrhoticshad afortis–lenisand apalatalizationcontrast:/N,n,Nʲ,nʲ,R,r,Rʲ,rʲ,L,l,Lʲ,lʲ/.There were also/ŋ,ŋʲ,m/and/mʲ/,making 16 sonorant phonemes in total.^[5]

Sound changes

Voiceless sonorants have a strong tendency to either revoice or undergofortition,for example to form africativelike/ç/or/ɬ/.^{[example needed]}

In connected, continuous speech inNorth American English,/t/and/d/are usuallyflappedto[ɾ]following sonorants, including vowels, when followed by a vowel or syllabic/l/.^[6]

References

^Keith Brown & Jim Miller (2013)The Cambridge Dictionary of Linguistics
^Ken Pike,Phonetics(1943:144). "The sonorants are nonvocoid resonants and comprise the lateral resonant orals and resonant nasals (e.g. [m], [n], and [l])."
^Ian Maddieson (with a chapter contributed by Sandra Ferrari Disner);Patterns of sounds;Cambridge University Press, 1984.ISBN 0-521-26536-3
^"Consonants".UCL DEPT OF PHONETICS & LINGUISTICS. September 19, 1995.RetrievedJuly 30,2012.
^Greene, David (1973). "The Growth of Palatalization in Irish".Transactions of the Philological Society.72:127–136.doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.1973.tb01017.x.
^"North American English: General Accents"(PDF).Universität Stuttgart - Institut für Linguistik.p. 6. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 21 April 2014.Retrieved26 April2019.

Bibliography

Ladefoged, Peter;Maddieson, Ian(1996).The Sounds of the World's Languages.Oxford: Blackwell.ISBN 0-631-19815-6.

[1] Keith Brown & Jim Miller (2013)The Cambridge Dictionary of Linguistics

[2] Ken Pike,Phonetics(1943:144). "The sonorants are nonvocoid resonants and comprise the lateral resonant orals and resonant nasals (e.g. [m], [n], and [l])."

[3] Ian Maddieson (with a chapter contributed by Sandra Ferrari Disner);Patterns of sounds;Cambridge University Press, 1984.ISBN 0-521-26536-3

[4] "Consonants".UCL DEPT OF PHONETICS & LINGUISTICS. September 19, 1995.RetrievedJuly 30,2012.

[5] Greene, David (1973). "The Growth of Palatalization in Irish".Transactions of the Philological Society.72:127–136.doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.1973.tb01017.x.

[6] "North American English: General Accents"(PDF).Universität Stuttgart - Institut für Linguistik.p. 6. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 21 April 2014.Retrieved26 April2019.

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