noun
- speech sounds produced with a relatively open vocal tract, allowing the voice to resonate freely, including vowels, nasals, and liquids
Usage: linguistics; phonetics
Examples
- The linguist explained that sonorants include sounds like /m/, /n/, /l/, and /r/.
- Vowels are the most prominent type of sonorants in most languages.
- Students learned to distinguish between sonorants and consonants that block airflow.
- The phonetics textbook devoted a chapter to analyzing sonorants across different languages.
- In syllable structure, sonorants often serve as the nucleus or peak.
- The researcher studied how sonorants behave differently from stops and fricatives.