Sonorant (definition)

Sonorant is a term used to describe liquids, nasals, and glides. These sounds are all produced with a free airflow that lacks turbulence and has voicing. Sonorant sounds are singable sounds- they can carry a tone. These sounds contrast with obstruents which are characterized by an obstructed vocal tract.

In English [l, n, ɹ, m, ŋ, j, w] are all sonorant sounds.

See Also

• Liquid (definition)
• Nasal (definition)
• Glide (definition)
• Obstruant (definition)
• Sounds of Scottish Gaelic

External Links

• http://akerbeltz.org/index.php?title=l_n_r

The link below takes you away from the Gaelic Wiki to Wikipedia. Since wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone, they often contain inaccurate information. So be careful!

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonorant

References

• Crystal, David. (1997) A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
• Crystal, David, (1999). The Penguin Dictionary of Language. London: Penguin.