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Glite Dictionary
🔊 Ongoing sound ♾️ Ongoing existence
continuancy

continuancy

9.9
A sound that can be held while air keeps flowing
  • noun
  • /kənˈtɪn.jən.si/
  • Specialized
translation icon : continuidad
  • Fricative sounds exhibit high continuancy, allowing them to be sustained without interruption.

Examples

  • The continuancy of speech sound is essential in distinguishing consonants from vowels.

  • Whereas voicing or continuancy are either present or absent in any given segment, quantity is purely relative.

    Academic text (2000)

  • This is true because phonological quantity—unlike, say, voicing or continuancy—is a relative feature.

    Academic text (2000)

  • In phonetics, vowels demonstrate a unique quality of continuancy which enables their prolonged articulation.

How Prolongable

vowel
  • Specialized
23 1.0
fricative
  • Specialized
1 7.6
continuancy
  • Specialized
9.9
approximant
  • Specialized
8.4
affricate
  • Specialized
9.9
stop consonant
  • Specialized
6.3

Surface Forms

continuancy singular
continuancies plural

Morphology

continuancy = continue (opaque) = continue + ancy

The phonetics sense is a technical extension (ability of a sound to be prolonged) that an average learner would not predict from 'continue' + '-ancy'.

Etymology

Continuancy comes from continue and continuous, which mean 'to go on' or 'without stopping'. In speech, think of a sound that you can hold like a steady breath — that's why continuancy describes sounds you can keep going, such as vowels and fricatives.