Sonorant

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In

stops, affricates and fricatives).[1]

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).[2]

Types

Whereas

nucleus of a syllable in languages that place that distinction at that level of sonority; see Syllable
for details.

Sonorants contrast with

stops
(for example, /s/ and /t/).

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.[citation needed] Thus, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal fricatives never contrast with approximants.

Voiceless

Voiceless sonorants are rare; they occur as phonemes in 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 /r̥/, it also contains a corresponding voiced phoneme such as /r/.[citation needed]

Voiceless sonorants are most common around the

Eskimo–Aleut
).

One European language with voiceless sonorants is Welsh. Its phonology contains a phonemic voiceless alveolar trill /r̥/, along with three voiceless nasals: velar, alveolar and labial.

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

Voiceless [r̥ l̥ ʍ] and possibly [m̥ n̥] are hypothesized to have occurred in various dialects of Ancient Greek. The Attic dialect of the Classical period likely had [r̥] as the regular allophone of /r/ 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, diarrhea.

Examples

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

Old Irish 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: /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 undergo

example needed
]

In connected, continuous speech in North American English, /t/ and /d/ are usually flapped to [ɾ] following sonorants, including vowels, when followed by a vowel or syllabic /l/.[6]

See also

References

  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. ISBN 0-521-26536-3
  4. ^ "Consonants". UCL DEPT OF PHONETICS & LINGUISTICS. September 19, 1995. Retrieved July 30, 2012.
  5. doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.1973.tb01017.x
    .
  6. ^ "North American English: General Accents" (PDF). Universität Stuttgart - Institut für Linguistik. p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 April 2014. Retrieved 26 April 2019.

Bibliography

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