sonorant
- noun
- /ˈsɒnərənt/
- Specialized
:
sonorante
- What you describe as "soft" consonants are known as "sonorants," and are produced without causing turbulence in the airflow, whether by letting the air out through the nose (N, M), or letting it go around the sides of the tongue (L).
Examples
-
So the sonorants are the nasals and the liquids and the glides, the, the consonants in which there's no pressure building up in the oral cavity.
-
Primary features for the A condition were voicing, nasality, and sonorant; those for the V condition related to place of articulation; and those for the AV condition were a combination of those for the A and V conditions plus sibilancy.
Academic text (1990) -
Sonorant and voicing features were transmitted well for the A condition, but features related to high-frequency and place cues were not.
Academic text (1990) -
A high degree of redundancy is inherent in these features, as all sonorants are voiced, and the nasals and liquids can also be classified as sonorants.
Academic text (1990) -
A high degree of redundancy is inherent in these features, as all sonorants are voiced, and the nasals and liquids can also be classified as sonorants.
Academic text (1990) -
The sounds produced by the letters 'm' and 'n' are sonorants that do not create turbulence in airflow.
-
In phonetics, sonorants refer to vowels and nasal sounds produced with smooth airflow.
-
In English, the letters 'l' and 'm' are classified as sonorants, allowing air to flow freely.
Surface Forms
Etymology
Sonorant as a noun comes from the Latin root sonor- ('to sound'), so a sonorant is literally a kind of sound you can hold or sing. That's why in speech a sonorant is a vowel or a consonant like 'm' or 'l' that has a steady, easy-to-sustain 'sound'.
