In ordinary life, few people think about the classification of sounds that people use in speech. Some of the Russian language school course remember that there are vowels and consonants, the latter still being paired and divided into voiced and deaf, and there are still hissing ones. But this is not a complete list. Does an ordinary student answer the question, what is a sonorous sound? Unlikely.
Classification of Speech Sounds
Those who are interested in philology and receive a specialized education, in the learning process find out that sounds are also divided by the method of extraction, localization and other characteristic features. Best of all they are known by specialists - speech therapists, defectologists, as well as linguists who specialize in phonetics.
There are several classifications according to various criteria in both acoustic and physiological sense. This is the main division used by phonetists. The physiology of sound production refers to the separation of sounds into vowels, consonants, and their further fragmentation into subcategories. Classification from the point of view of acoustics is not known to everyone. That is why it will be extremely interesting to consider it.
Acoustic classification
First of all, distinguish between vocal and non-vocal sounds. When pronouncing the former, a voice is activated, so that all vowels and some consonants are vocal. Further distinguish consonant and non-consonant sounds. The first are all consonants, and the rest are vowels. There is still a category of sharp ones, those that differ in the heterogeneity of the sound spectrum, for example, [q] or [p], fall into it. The rest are classified as unsharp. From school, the division into voiced and deaf is familiar, but from the point of view of acoustics, voiced and consonants that are not paired also belong to voiced. There are several more criteria, but they mostly depend on the vocal apparatus of a particular person and the intonations used by him.
One of the first in speech and, perhaps, the simplest in education, are sonor sounds. They are only consonants, are vocal. When pronouncing such sounds, there are practically no obstacles to exhaled air. Why are they so interesting?
Sleepy
The name of this category comes from Latin, where sonorus means "sonorous". And they really cannot be called deaf. According to the theory, sonorous sound when it is pronounced does not create a turbulent air flow in the speech tract, that is, in the larynx, pharynx, oral cavity and nose. In fact, the voice simply prevails over the noise, that is, the movements of the lips, tongue, cheeks are minimal. In the Russian language, such sounds include [m], [n], [l], [p] and [j]. All of them, except the last, form a soft pair - [m '], [n'], [l '] and [p'].
The features of sonorous sounds are such that, despite belonging to consonants, in structure they are very close to vowels. In addition, by ear they sound more pleasant, melodious. This feature is used by poets and writers in a technique such as sound recording. It is the sonants, as they are also called, that become the first consonants made by the children. And this is due precisely to the ease in their articulation and education. By the way, it is the sonorous ones that are most often the "core" of a syllable, its most sonorous and conspicuous part.
Sonants in other languages
Naturally, not only in Russian speech are used sonorous sounds. Examples can be found in many other languages, especially many in Italian and Spanish, which is why they sound smooth and beautiful. There are two sonants in English, of which there are no analogues in Russian. It's about [ŋ] and [w]. The sonorous sound [ŋ] refers to the sonorous nasal and is pronounced quite differently than the usual [n], and [w] is very similar to the vowel and pronounced by the lips so that it turns out to be something like a short [ue]. In German, there is little sonant, it is dominated by tweaking, whistling sounds and affricates, so many people think that it is so rough on hearing. In non-European languages, there is also such a category as “sonorous sound”, and the variety of phonemes entering there is amazing.