sconsonant

Sconsonant is not a standard term in linguistics. In some writings it appears as an informal shorthand for a class of consonants associated with the letter s, or more often for sibilant consonants—those produced with a hissing quality.

When used to describe phonetic properties, sconsonant typically refers to sibilants, the consonants made with a narrow tongue constriction near the teeth or palate, creating a hiss. This includes voiceless and voiced fricatives and their relatives, such as s and z, as well as postalveolar and other sibilants like ʃ and ʒ, and certain affricates such as t͡s and d͡z. Sconsonants are contrasted with non-sibilant consonants such as plosives p, t, k, as well as nasals m, n, liquids l, and glides w and j.

In orthography-based usage, sconsonant may denote a consonant whose symbol begins with s in writing, regardless of its actual phonetic articulation. Because the usage is not standardized, different authors may mean different things when they use the term.

In scholarly contexts, it is preferable to use established terms such as sibilant, alveolar fricative, or the specific place and manner of articulation, to avoid ambiguity.

See also: consonant, sibilant, phonetics, phonology.