Articulatory Phonetics

Articulatory Phonetics We will spend the next few days studying articulatory phonetic: what is involved in the actual movement of various parts of the vocal tract during speech. (Use transparancy to discuss organs of speech; oral, pharyngeal and nasal cavities; articulators, lungs and diaphragm). All speech sounds are made in this area. None are made outside of it (such as by stomping, hand clapping, snapping of fingers, farting, etc.) Theoretically, any sound could be used as a speech sound provided the human vocal tract is capable of producing it and the human ear capable of hearing it. Actually only a few hundred different sounds or types of sounds occur in languages known to exist today, considerably fewer than the vocal tract is capable of producing. Thus, all speech sounds result from air being somehow obstructed or modified within the vocal tract. This involves 3 processes working together:
a) the airstream process--the source of air used in making the sound.
b) the phonation process--the behavior of the vocal cords in the glottis during the production of the sound.
c) the oro-nasal process--the modification of that flow of air in the vocal track (from the glottis to the lips and nose). Let's discuss the airstream process first.
The airstream process The first major way to categorize sounds according to phonetic features is by the source of air. Where does the air come from that is modified by the vocal organs? Languages can use any of three airstream mechanisms to produce sounds. One airstream mechanism is by far the most important for producing sounds in the world's languages. Most sounds in the world's languages are produced by manipulating air coming into the vocal tract as it is being exhaled by the lungs, a method referred to as the pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. Sounds made by manipulating air as it is exhaled from the lungs are called pulmonic egressive sounds. Virtually all