Fricative consonant
Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of [f]; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German [x] (the final consonant of Bach); or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh [ɬ] (appearing twice in the name Llanelli). This turbulent airflow is called frication. A particular subset of fricatives are the sibilants. When forming a sibilant, one still is forcing air through a narrow channel, but in addition, the tongue is curled lengthwise to direct the air over the edge of the teeth. English [s], [z], [ʃ], and [ʒ] are examples of sibilants. The usage of two other terms is less standardized: "Spirant" is an older term for fricatives used by some American and European phoneticians and phonologists. "Strident" could mean just "sibilant", but some authors[who?] include also labiodental and uvular fricatives in the class.
Words
This table shows the example usage of word lists for keywords extraction from the text above.
Word | Word Frequency | Number of Articles | Relevance |
---|---|---|---|
fricatives | 5 | 91 | 0.29 |
frication | 2 | 6 | 0.145 |
spirant | 2 | 11 | 0.138 |
sibilants | 2 | 27 | 0.129 |
tongue | 3 | 2981 | 0.119 |