2004/12/01 by Eugenio Martı́nez-Celdrán · 13 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Phonetics and Phonology Research #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
paper · doi:10.1017/s0025100304001732
openalex publication_date 2004/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/20
The aim of this paper is to show that the approximant feature refers to a phonetic class which includes other subcategories of sounds, such as semi-vowels, rhotics, laterals and a subset of consonants. The consonants – due to the lack of articulatory precision – keep neither the obligatory closure for stops nor the aerodynamic characteristics required to produce a turbulent airstream, as is characteristic of fricatives. I am referring to these sounds as [[Voiced bilabial fricative] [Voiced dental fricative] [Voiced palatal fricative] [Voiced velar fricative]]. Moreover, I suggest a new definition of the approximant feature, which points out that the outflow of non-turbulent airstream is caused by either the opening of the organs or the lack of articulatory precision, or even both phenomena together.