A fricative consonant is made by constricting the airflow at a specific place in the mouth or throat without completely stopping it, so that the air creates friction as it passes through the narrow opening. The turbulent airflow is the source of the fricative’s sound – for instance, the high-frequency hiss of /s/ results from air rushing between the tongue and the alveolar ridge. Fricatives can be voiced or voiceless; voiceless fricatives (like /s/ or /f/) tend to have a louder turbulence noise, whereas voiced fricatives (like /z/ or /v/) combine that noise with vocal fold vibration. In speech development and disorders, fricatives are sometimes challenging because they require precise control of airflow and articulator placement; misarticulations can lead to substitutions (e.g., /f/ for /θ/) or distortions (like a lateral lisp on /s/) that clinicians work to remediate.
Allard Jongman. “Phonetics of Fricatives.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford University Press, (2024).
Ian R. A. MacKay and Terrance M. Nearey. “Characteristics of Fricatives.” In Handbook of Speech-Language Pathology, edited by Jack S. Damico et al., 201–211. New York: Taylor & Francis, (2006).
