formant

noun

1. A band of frequencies in a sound spectrum that have greater intensity and determine the quality of a sound, especially the characteristic sounds of the consonants.

   “The resonances of the vocal tract are called formants. Trying to hear the separate formants in a vowel is difficult. We are so used to a vowel being a single meaningful entity that it is difficult to consider it as a sound with separable bits. But it is possible to say vowels so that some of their component parts are more obvious.”

2. Synonym of formative (“a language unit, typically a morph, that has a morphological function”).