The production of speech sounds

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The articulators of speech

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Vowels and consonants

According to Ferdinand de Saussure, what distinguishes vowels from consonants is the higher degree of aperture of the oral cavity. Leonard Bloomfield defines vowels as modifications of voice-sound that involve no closure, friction, or contact of the tongue or lips while consonants (that include stops, trills, aspirants, nasals and laterals) are the other sounds.
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 Chomsky and Halle when a vowel is produced the outgoing airstream does not meet any major obstacle or constriction in its way from the lungs out of the mouth, and the articulation of the sound allows spontaneous voicing, whereas the articulation of a consonant always involves some kind of blocking of the airstream

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The vowels of English

As mentioned before, vowels differ from consonants in that there is no noticable obstruction in the vocal tract during their production.

Air escapes in a relatively unimpeded way through the mouth and/or nose.
Vowels are determined by changes in position of the lips, tongue and palate. These changes can be very slight and difficult to detect.
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The vowel chart

The vowel chart attempts to map the positions of the tongue and jaw in articulating vowels. It is worth mentioning that, as it is so difficult to determine the exact position of the lips, tongue and palate, there is no single agreement on the vowel .

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The English vowels

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Criteria for consonant classification Articulatory description:

Vocal cord vibration (voicing) Place of articulation Manner of articulation

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Vocal cord vibration (voicing)

voiced sound:
the cords vibrate when we produce a sound, the sound thus uttered is called a voiced sound.

voiceless sound
the sound is uttered without vocal cord vibration, then we are talking about a voiceless sound.

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Voicing takes place at the Glottis

Front

Arytenoid cartilages cause closing (left) and opening (right) of vocal folds From Roach (1991)
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Four configurations of the glottis

a. Open (default) b. Partial closure (/h/) c. Vocal fold vibration d. Closure (glottal stop)
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The International Phonetic Alphabet recognises the following places of articulation (among others): Bilabial The point of maximum constriction is made by the coming together of the two lips. Labiodental The lower lip articulates with the upper teeth. Dental The tip of the tongue articulates with the back or bottom of the top teeth. Alveolar The tip or the blade of the tongue articulates with the forward part of the alveolar ridge. A sound made with the tip of the tongue here is an apico-alveolar sound; one made with the blade, a lamino-alveolar.
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 Postalveolar The tip or the blade of the tongue articulates with the back area of the alveolar ridge. Palatal The front of the tongue articulates with the domed part of the hard palate. Velar The back of the tongue articulates with the soft palate. Glottal The vocal folds are brought together; in some cases, the function of the vocal folds can be part of articulation as well as phonation, as in the case of [h] in many languages.
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The possible places of articulation form a continuum along the upper surface of the vocal tract; therefore the places listed above should be seen as arbritrary (but conventional) divisions which can be modified if necessary through the use of additional categories, e.g., "interdental", "alveolo-palatal" or "prevelar". English exemplifies several places of articulation: bilabial [p], [b] and [m]; labiodental [f], [v] and [] (the "m" in "triumph" is labiodental, in harmony with the following [f] sound); dental [] and []; alveolar [t], [d], [n], [s], [z], [], [l]; postalveolar []; palatal [j]; and velar [k], [g] and [].
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Manner of articulation
Manner of articulation is the type of closure made by the
articulators and the degree of the obstruction of the airstream by those articulators. True consonants or obstruents can be classified taking into account manner in which the air is released from the articulators. Consonants have already been defined as sounds produced by obstructing the vocal tract while expelling the airstream from the lungs.
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Manners of articulation
Obstruents: sounds are made with a high degree of air obstruction, these are: Plosive Fricative Affricate Sonorants : sounds are made with relatively little obstruction of air, these are: Continuant Aproximant Nasals
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Plosives
The sound is produced with a complete closure of the vocal tract followed by a sudden release of the air, the articulation is accompanied by a burst, a sort of explosion. Such sounds are consequently called plosives

A plosive (stop) is composed of 3 phases

Closure (stop) Hold (the passage of air from the lungs is blocked) Release the difference in air pressure between the area behind the closure and the atmosphere results in a small explosion. 07/08/2013 17

Fricatives
Are created by forming a constriction through which air from the lungs may pass, but not freely. This lack of freedom causes audible turbulence, or friction, hence the name fricative. As for stops they may be voiceless or voiced .
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The

only

other

fricative

is

the

voiceless glottal /h/. It is the only single phoneme in English and experts think that it may well disappear in the future.

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Affricates
These may be considered as stop + fricative An affricate is composed of the following stages: Closure Hold A small opening instead of the complete opening of the stop. This small opening causes friction just like a fricative
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The Approximants
Not all continuant sounds are produced with friction There are sounds in English which do not involve a major obstruction in the speech tract and do not produce the auditory effect of friction that characterize fricatives. Such sounds are commonly called approximants or frictionless continuants.
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Nasals
A different criterion that can be used to distinguish among sounds is the position of the velum or soft palate If the velum is lowered, thus allowing the air to escape through the nasal cavity, we are dealing with a nasal sound. If it is raised, blocking the nasal cavity and letting the air out through the oral cavity the sound is called oral. Nasal sounds are sonorants and of all the members of this class they display the lowest degree of sonority.
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Any questions ???

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