What is "continuant"

Continuant \Con*tin"u*ant\, a. Continuing; prolonged; sustained; as, a continuant sound. -- n. A continuant sound; a letter whose sound may be prolonged.

a. Continuing; prolonged; sustained. n. 1 (context phonetics English) A linguistic sound other than a stop 2 (context mathematics English) A determinant formed from a tridiagonal matrix.

n. consonant articulated by constricting (but not closing) the vocal tract [syn: continuant consonant] [ant: stop consonant]

A continuant is a speech sound produced with an incomplete closure of the oral vocal tract. Among consonants, there are two broad categories of continuants: fricatives and approximants. Approximants are sometimes called "frictionless continuants".

Compare sonorant (resonant), which includes approximants and nasals but not fricatives. Both terms technically include vowels, but are frequently restricted to the context of consonants.

In algebra, the continuant is a multivariate polynomial representing the determinant of a tridiagonal matrix and having applications in generalized continued fractions.