A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

442 sonorant
sonorant (adj./n.) (son) One of the major class features of sound set up
by Chomsky and Halle (see Chomskyan) in their distinctive feature theory
of phonology, to handle variations in manner of articulation. Sonorant
sounds are defined articulatorily, as those produced with a relatively free airflow,
and a vocal fold position such that spontaneous voicing is possible,
as in vowels, liquids, nasals and laterals. Its opposite is non-sonorant
(or obstruent), referring to sounds where there is a stricture impeding the
airflow, as in plosives, fricatives and affricates. An analogous term is
resonant.
sonority (n.) (1) A term in auditory phonetics for the overall loudness of
a sound relative to others of the same pitch, stress and duration. Sounds
are said to have an ‘inherent sonority’, which accounts for the impression of
a sound’s ‘carrying further’, e.g. [s] carries further than [à], [a] further than
[i]. Sonority is typically calculated along a scale from voiceless stops (least)
to low vowels (most): voiceless stops – voiced stops – voiceless fricatives –
voiced fricatives – nasals – liquids – glides – high vowels – mid vowels – low
vowels. lenition processes increase a segments’s sonority and fortition processes
decrease it.
(2) In phonology, a term used in attempts to define the syllabic structure
of utterances. For example, the notion is important in autosegmental (and
specifically metrical) phonology. In a sonority scale, or sonority hierarchy,
the most sonorous elements are assigned the highest value, and the least sonorous
the lowest value. The centre of a syllable (the syllabic nucleus) is defined
as the place where sonority is greatest (the sonority peak). Patterns of sonority
sequence have been noted, leading to such observations as the sonority sequencing
generalization: in any syllable, there is a segment constituting a sonority peak
which is preceded and/or followed by a sequence of segments with progressively
decreasing sonority values. In optimality theory, the term refers to a constraint
which requires that syllable onsets increase in sonority and codas
decrease in sonority.
(3) The notion of visual sonority is used in the phonological analysis of the
various features of sign language.
sortal (adj.) A property of a word that necessarily applies to an entity throughout
its existence; for example, cow is sortal, whereas ill is non-sortal. The term
(and the associated noun sortality) derives from ‘sort’, in the sense of ‘species’.
Sortal terms include natural kind terms (cow), artefactual terms (car), and
abstract terms (number). Multi-word items are not excluded (black-and-white
cow).
sound change/law/shift Terms used in historical linguistics to describe
the changes in a language’s sound system over a period of time. Many
types of sound change have been recognized, e.g. whether the change affects
the total number of phonemes (as when two phonemes merge into one, or
one phoneme splits into two) or affects only the allophones of a phoneme.
Particular attention is paid to the nature of the environments which can be
shown to restrict (or ‘condition’) the sound change. When a series of related
sound changes takes place at a particular stage of a language’s history, the