Stop Consonant - Terminology

Terminology

The terms stop, occlusive, and plosive are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow which is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant.

Either "occlusive" or "stop" may be used as a general term covering the other together with nasals. That is, 'occlusive' may be defined as oral occlusives (stops/plosives) plus nasal occlusives (nasals such as, ), or 'stop' may be defined as oral stops (plosives) plus nasal stops (nasals). Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996) prefer to restrict 'stop' to oral occlusives. They say,

what we call simply nasals are called nasal stops by some linguists. We avoid this phrase, preferring to reserve the term 'stop' for sounds in which there is a complete interruption of airflow.

In addition, they use "plosive" for a pulmonic stop; "stops" in their usage include ejective and implosive consonants.

If a term such as 'plosive' is used for oral obstruents, and nasals are not called nasal stops, then a stop may then mean the glottal stop; 'plosive' may even mean non-glottal stop. In other cases, however, it may be the word 'plosive' which is restricted to the glottal stop. Note that, generally speaking, stops do not have plosion (a release burst). In English, for example, there are stops with no audible release, such as the /p/ in apt.

In Ancient Greek, stops were called áphōna (stoicheîa), which was translated into Latin as mūtae (cōnsōnantēs), and from there borrowed into English as mute. (Mute was sometimes used instead for voiceless consonants, whether stops or fricatives, a usage which was later replaced with surd, a term still occasionally seen in the literature). Both the Latin and Greek terms sometimes referred to consonants in general, which ancient grammarians did not consider pronounceable on their own without vowels.