noncontinuants

Noncontinuants is a term used in phonology to classify consonantal segments according to whether their articulation allows the airstream to be extended without a change in the place or manner of articulation. In the standard feature framework, a noncontinuant is a segment that cannot be sustained indefinitely at a given articulation because it involves a complete constriction or closure of the oral tract, which must be released or altered to proceed. This contrasts with continuants, which can be prolonged and include vowels and, in many analyses, fricatives and approximants.

The conventional inventory of noncontinuants typically includes stops (plosives) and related segments that involve a moment of occlusion, such as bilabial p, t, k and their voiced counterparts. Affricates are often treated as noncontinuants because they begin with a complete closure before a fricative release. In different theoretical frameworks, some researchers also classify nasals or other segments as noncontinuants, reflecting variations in how closure and airflow division are analyzed. Membership can thus vary across languages and phonological theories.

Noncontinuants play a key role in defining natural classes and in phonotactic analyses, offering a way to capture patterns of assimilation, alternation, and syllable structure related to how speech sounds are produced. The concept is part of broader feature systems that include continuant vs. noncontinuant, voice, place, and manner of articulation, and it is used to describe and predict cross-linguistic patterns of consonant inventories.