Broader Classifications
Manners of articulation with substantial obstruction of the airflow (stops, fricatives, affricates) are called obstruents. These are prototypically voiceless, but voiced obstruents are extremely common as well. Manners without such obstruction (nasals, liquids, approximants, and also vowels) are called sonorants because they are nearly always voiced. Voiceless sonorants are uncommon, but are found in Welsh and Classical Greek (the spelling "rh"), in Standard Tibetan (the "lh" of Lhasa), and the "wh" in those dialects of English that distinguish "which" from "witch".
Sonorants may also be called resonants, and some linguists prefer that term, restricting the word 'sonorant' to non-vocoid resonants (that is, nasals and liquids, but not vowels or semi-vowels). Another common distinction is between occlusives (stops and nasals) and continuants (all else); affricates are considered to be both, because they are sequences of stop plus fricative.
Read more about this topic: Manner Of Articulation
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