Sonority

Abstract

If an interface between phonetics and phonology really exists ( pace Ohala 1990b), then one topic having a long and controversial history in that domain is sonority. Sonority can be defined as a unique type of relative, n ‐ary (non‐binary) featurelike phonological element that potentially categorizes all speech sounds into a hierarchical scale. For example, vowels are more sonorous than liquids, which are higher in sonority than nasals, with obstruents being the least sonorous of all segments. In terms of traditional phonetic systems for categorizing natural classes of sounds, then, the feature encoded by sonority most closely corresponds to the notion manner of articulation (see chapter the stricture features ). In this sense, sonority is like most other features: it demarcates groups of segments that behave similarly in cross‐linguistically common processes. At the same time, however, sonority is unlike most features in that it exhaustively encompasses all speech sounds simultaneously, i.e. every type of segment has some inherent incremental value for this feature. Sonority is also unique in that it has never been observed to spread (assimilate), in and of itself.

Sounding out Sonority

“…Two anthologies focusing exclusively on sonority are Parker () and Ball and Müller (). An annotated bibliography of around 125 items appears in the Oxford online series (Parker, ). As noted in Section 3.1, a more comprehensive list of references is posted as Parker (), albeit in rough form, and without annotations.…”

“…One definition of sonority, as typically understood in linguistics today, is “a unique type of relative, n ‐ary (non‐binary) feature‐like phonological element that potentially categorizes all speech sounds into a hierarchical scale” (Parker, : 1,160) . It thus serves a descriptive purpose somewhat analogous to that of the periodic table in chemistry.…”

Onset affricate-stopclusters in Croatian

“…The level of sonority of sounds rises from the beginning of the syllable to its peak (nucleus) and falls from the peak to the end of the syllable. -This, in a nutshell, is the Sonority Sequencing Principle, a strong universal tendency with some exceptions (Blevins 2006:333-334;Parker 2011Parker :1164Topintzi 2011Topintzi :1287, a common-place of every recent phonology coursebook. 7 The higher the sonority of the sound, the greater the probability for the sound to be closer to the peak of the syllable.…”

“…The present paper does not intend to resolve anything in that respect, it only wishes to affirm that it takes into consideration the fundamental problem regarding sonority. Third, Jespersen's hierarchy encompasses no affricates -the sounds that are of interest in this paper -and this would apply to the majority of future hierarchies (see Parker 2011Parker :1176. The ones that do encompass affricates, classify them differently, in one of the three following ways: affricates < stops, affricates > stops, or affricates = stops (Parker 2002:70; on the nature of affricates see also Lin 2011).…”

“…First, if affricates are more sonorous than stops (Jelaska 2004;Parker 2011), then onset affricate-stop clusters violate the Sonority Sequencing Principle in the same way fricative-stop clusters do.…”