science

Nonexplosive stop

Nonexplosive stop is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Nonexplosive stop rather than just read about it. In short: In phonetics and phonology, nonexplosive stops are a broad conception of consonants that resemble (and may include) implosives but that do not necessarily involve implosion or negative oral air pressure. These stop consonants lack the pressure buildup and burst release of pulmonic plosives, and include implosives, glottalized and laryngealized stops, as well as 'certain varieties of "lenis" and labial–velar stops'.

Key takeaways

Nonexplosive stop belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Nonexplosive stop to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Nonexplosive stop from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

In phonetics and phonology, nonexplosive stops are a broad conception of consonants that resemble (and may include) implosives but that do not necessarily involve implosion or negative oral air pressure. These stop consonants lack the pressure buildup and burst release of pulmonic plosives, and include implosives, glottalized and laryngealized stops, as well as 'certain varieties of "lenis" and labial–velar stops'. According to Clements & Osu (2002) (quoting Ian Maddieson), such consonants occur in around 20% of the world's languages. Ikwerre has two nonexplosive stops that acoustically resemble implosives, but lack the characteristic glottalic airstream mechanism and lowering of the larynx. They are transcribed as voiced ⟨ḅ⟩ and pre-glottalized ⟨ʼḅ⟩, and written in the language's orthography as ⟨gb⟩ and ⟨kp⟩, respectively. Thus, they correspond to labial–velars /ɡ͡b/ and /k͡p/ in most other Igboid languages, and to implosives /ɓ/ and /ɓ̥/ in some varieties of Igbo; additionally, in some varieties of Ikwerre, they may still have labial–velar realizations. In Ikwerre, they pattern with sonorants as a natural class, both in the sense of being non-obstruent, and in the sense that they have allophonic realizations as nasal consonants when preceding nasal vowels. However, while they pattern with sonorants, they are featurally described as being both non-obstruent and non-sonorant, as they lack both air pressure buildup and sonority. Murrinh-Patha has two series of stops described as "fortis" and "lenis"; the lenis series are non-explosive:

Visual observation of the Murrinh-Patha speaker [...] confirmed that the larynx is lowered quite substantially during the lenis articulations [...]. This is clearly the reason for the low, fluctuating, and sometimes negative intra-oral pressure[s of] these fully voiced stops (in the case of this speaker's initial lenis stops, more than half the tokens were fully implosive).

Notes

References Clements, George N.; Osu, Sylvester (2002). "Explosives, implosives, and nonexplosives: Some linguistic effects of air pressure differences in stops". In Carlos Gussenhoven and Natasha Warner (ed.). Laboratory Phonology 7. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 299–350. doi:10.1515/9783110197105.2.299. ISBN 9783110170863. Clements, George N.; Osu, Sylvester (2005). "Nasal harmony in Ikwere, a language with no phonemic nasal consonants". Journal of African Languages and Linguistics. 26 (2): 165–200. doi:10.1515/jall.2005.26.2.165. S2CID 144317723. Miller, Brett (2012). "Sonority and the Larynx". In Parker, Steve (ed.). The Sonority Controversy. Phonology and Phonetics. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 257–288. ISBN 9783110261516. Butcher, Andrew (2004). "'Fortis/lenis' revisited one more time: the aerodynamics of some oral stop contrasts in three continents". Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics. 18 (6–8): 547–557. doi:10.1080/02699200410001703565.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nonexplosive stop

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nonexplosive stop claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Nonexplosive stop before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Nonexplosive stop ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Nonexplosive stop

In research: Nonexplosive stop appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Nonexplosive stop in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Nonexplosive stop is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Phonetics stubs, Plosives, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nonexplosive stop outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Nonexplosive stop in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Nonexplosive stop means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Nonexplosive stop out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Nonexplosive stop in simple terms?

Why does Nonexplosive stop matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Nonexplosive stop?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Nonexplosive stop.