[abrupt]

Definition

The feature [abrupt] describes the silence before or after “a spread of energy over a wide frequency region, either as a burst or as a rapid transition of vowel formants” (Jakobson & Halle 1968:430).

Purpose

The feature [abrupt] describes the manner of the transition between sound and silence and distinguishes “plosives from constrictives” (Jakobson & Halle 1968:430).

History

 The term [abrupt] was used briefly in 1968 as the opposite of [continuant]. It is defined and used under the same terms that described both [interrupted] and [intercepted]. The feature [continuant] was favored when [abrupt] was quickly abandoned. 

References

Jakobson, Roman; and Morris Halle. 1968. Phonology in relation to phonetics. Manual of phonetics, ed. by Bertil Malmberg, 411-449. Amsterdam: North Holland.

Further Reading

Harms, Robert T. 1968. Introduction to phonological theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Author

Ainsley Graf