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Spirant
(redirected from Spirants)

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Spirant 

one of a class of consonants also known as fricatives. Spirants are formed when a stream of air passes through the aperture created when articulatory organs are brought close to one another at various points in the vocal tract; they include labial and frontal spirants. In manner of articulation, spirants are opposed to other obstruents and to sonants.



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Although Luick's hypothesis concerning limitations of voicing were adopted by structurally-oriented scholars, like Moulton (1954:21: "The voicing of medial voiceless spirants affected those following a stressed vowel, but not those following an unstressed vowel.
tan be explained by the process of unvoicing of final voiced fricatives, which took place shortly after the voicing of medial spirants (Campbell 1959:180).
More importantly, however, the voiced spirants [v y] seem to be comparable to the continuant sonorant [r] in terms of complexity, as they are all governed by the voiced dental spirant [o].
 
 
 
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