Obstruant (definition)

An obstruent is a sound that is made with complete or considerable obstruction the the vocal tract. Groups of sounds considered to be obstruents are stops, affricates and fricatives. An example of a obstruent would be the fricative “th” and stops “p” and “t.” Obstruents stand in opposition to sonorants

See Also

• Consonant (definition)
• Manner of Articulation (definition)
• Sonorant (definition)

References

• Matthews, P. H. (1997) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Crystal, David. (1997) A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. The language library. Oxford, UK: Blackwell,