Consonantal

It is used in a general adjectival sense, and also has separate technical status in the DISTINCTIVE FEATURE theory of phonology, where ‘consonantal’ (cons) and non-consonantal constitute one of the major CLASS FEATURES in terms of which speech sounds are analyzed. Consonantal sounds may be defined either articulatorily or acoustically in this approach: they are produced with a major obstruction in the middle of the vocal tract, and have low ACOUSTIC energy. Non-consonantal sounds lack this obstruction, and have high acoustic energy. Consonants in the above phonological sense would be analyzed as having the feature [+consonantal]: vowels would be [−consonantal].