Lips

are a visible body part at the mouth of humans and many animals. Lips are soft, movable, and serve as
the opening for food intake and in the articulation of sound and speech. The lips serve for creating
different sounds - mainly the labial(Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the
active articulator), bilabial( m, p, b - bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips), and
labiodental consonant(labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth-ɱ
(labiodental nasal), f(voiceless labiodental fricative), v (voiced labiodental fricative) sounds - and thus
create an important part of the speech apparatus. The lips enable whistling and the performing of wind
and brass instruments such as the trumpet, clarinet, flute and saxophone.

Stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The
terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms. Plosives are
oral stops with a pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. The term is also used to describe nasal (non-
oral) stops (sounds like [n] and [m]). Many use the term nasal continuant rather than nasal stop to refer
to sounds like [n] and [m]. One should be aware that this article treats these "nasal continuants" as nasal
stops.

Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes
linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are
considered coronals. The two by far most common labials are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and
labiodentals, articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth, both of which are present in English.
Other labials include dentolabials, articulated with the upper lip against the lower teeth, the reverse of
labiodental.

The most common distribution between bilabials and labiodentals is the English one, in which the stops,
[m], [p], and [b], are bilabial and the fricatives, [f], and [v], are labiodental.

In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants
identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are:

Example
IPA Description
Language Orthography IPA Meaning
bilabial nasal English man [mæn] man
voiceless bilabial plosive English spin [spɪn] spin
voiced bilabial plosive English bed [bɛd] bed

Фонетиката е наука (дял от лингвистиката), която изучава звука, звуковия строй, звуковата
система на човешкия език, както и звуковите промени в думите. Тя разглежда начина на
образуване на звуковете, описва точно съответните движения на говорните органи при
произнасяне на даден звук, изследва физическите (акустическите) качества на звука.
Физиологията на говорните органи ни запознава подробно с устройството, взаимното
разположение и службата на тези органи, без да се интересува от функциите на произвежданите
звукове в процеса на езиково общуване. Фонетиката не изключва подробно изследване на
звуковете от физиологическо и акустическо гледище, но обръща внимание на службата на
звуковете с оглед на комуникативната функция на езика. Наред с изучаване на говорните звукове
в предмета на фонетиката влизат и суперсегментните явления като ударението и различните
видове интонация, проблемите за сричката, звуковите промени, законите на звуковата
съчетаемост и т.н. Задача на фонетиката е да изучи както особеностите на звуковата материя,
така и особеностите на нейната структура или форма на описанието на звуковата страна на езика.
Това означава, че фонетиката в еднаква степен трябва да представи звуковете както от гледище
на тяхното функциониране, така и от гледище на тяхното материално осъществяване. Единството
на двете страни определя всъщност спецификата на даден език.

Фонологията изучава организацията и употребата на звуковете в естествените езици.

Фонологичната система на един език включва описание на звуковете и техните характеристики, а
също и правилата, които определят как звуковете си взаимодействат.

Phonetics and phonology are two branches of linguistics that deal primarily with the structure of
human language sounds. Phonetics focuses on the physical manifestations of speech sounds and on
theories of speech production and perception. Phonology is concerned with the systems of rules (or
constraints) that determine how the sounds of a language combine and influence one another.

Most phonetic work falls into the sub-field of articulatory phonetics (the study of the human vocal
tract, the International Phonetic Alphabet, and how to make and describe language sounds), but with
recent advances in computers and the availability of good phonetics software, there has been a recent
boom in acoustic research (the physical properties of sounds-wave forms, pitch, intensity,
spectrograms).

Phonology cares about the entire sound system for a given language. The goal is to formulate a
model/theory which explains not only the sound patterns found in a particular language, but the patterns
found in all languages. Examples of questions which are interesting to phonologists are: How do sounds
change due to the sounds around them? (For example, why does the plural of cat end with an 's'-sound,
the plural of dog end with a 'z'-sound, and the plural of dish end in something sounding like 'iz'?) How
do sounds combine in a particular language? (For example, English allows 't' and 'b' to be followed by 'l'
- rattle, rabble, atlas, ablative - so why then does 'blick' sound like a possible word in English when
'tlick' does not?)

Phonology (from Ancient Greek: φωνή, phōnḗ, "voice, sound" and λόγος, lógos, "word, speech, subject
of discussion") is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the
field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a
phonology in the sense of a sound system. When describing the formal area of study, the term typically
describes linguistic analysis either beneath the word (e.g., syllable, onset and rhyme, phoneme,
articulatory gestures, articulatory feature, mora, etc.) or to units at all levels of language that are thought
to structure sound for conveying linguistic meaning.

It is viewed as the subfield of linguistics that deals with the sound systems of languages. Whereas
phonetics is about the physical production, acoustic transmission and perception of the sounds of speech,
phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language or across languages to encode
meaning. The term "phonology" was used in the linguistics of a greater part of the 20th century as a
cover term uniting phonemics and phonetics. Current phonology can interface with disciplines such as
psycholinguistics and speech perception, resulting in specific areas like articulatory or laboratory
phonology.

Alveolar is a consonant sound such as /t/or /d/that you make by putting the end of your tongue
behind your upper front teeth

Bilabial - a consonant sound such as /p/ or /b/ that is made using both lips

Labial - a speech sound made using one or both lips

SPOKEN LANGUAGE AS AN OBJECT OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY

The word "language" has two meanings: language as a general concept, and "a language" a specific
linguistic system. Another definition sees language as a formal system of symbols governed by
grammatical rules combining particular signs with particular meanings. This definition stresses the fact
that human languages can be described as closed structural systems consisting of rules that relate
particular signs to particular meanings. Yet another definition defines language as a system of
communication that enables humans to cooperate. This definition stresses the social functions of
language and the fact that humans use it to express themselves, and to manipulate things in the world.
This view of language is associated with the study of language in a functional or pragmatic framework,
also in socio-linguistics and linguistic anthropology. Human language is unique when compared to other
forms of communication, such as those used by animals, because it allows humans to produce an infinite
set of utterances from a finite set of elements [7] and because the symbols and grammatical rules of any
particular language are largely arbitrary so that the system can only be acquired through social
interaction. The known systems of communication used by animals, on the other hand, can only express
a finite number of utterances that are mostly genetically transmitted. Linguistics is the scientific[1][2]
study of human language.[3][4] Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical
division is between the study of language structure (grammar) and the study of meaning (semantics and
pragmatics). Grammar encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the
rules that determine how words combine into phrases and sentences) and phonology (the study of sound
systems and abstract sound units). Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual
properties of speech sounds (phones), non-speech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived.
The ways in which spoken languages use sounds to construct meaning is studied in phonology, the study
of how humans produce and perceive vocal sounds is called phonetics. In spoken language meaning is
constructed when sounds become part of a system in which some sounds can contribute to expressing
meaning and others do not; In any given language only a limited number of the many distinct sounds
that can be created by the human voal apparatus contribute to constructing meaning. Sounds as part of a
linguistic system are called phonemes. All spoken languages have phonemes of at least two different
categories: vowels and consonants which can be combined into forming syllables. Apart from segments
such as consonants and vowels some languages also use sound in other ways to convey meaning, many
languages for example use stress, pitch, duration and tone to distinguish meaning. Because these
phenomena operate outside of the level of single segments they are called suprasegmental.

Other sub-disciplines of linguistics include the following: evolutionary linguistics, which considers the
origins of language; historical linguistics, which explores language change; sociolinguistics, which looks
at the relation between linguistic variation and social structures; psycholinguistics, which explores the
representation and functioning of language in the mind; neurolinguistics, which looks at the
representation of language in the brain; language acquisition, which considers how children acquire their
first language and how children and adults acquire and learn their second and subsequent languages; and
discourse analysis, which is concerned with the structure of texts and conversations, and pragmatics with
how meaning is transmitted based on a combination of linguistic competence, non-linguistic knowledge,
and the context of the speech act.

There are many sub-fields concerned with particular aspects of linguistic structure, ranging from those
focused primarily on form to those focused primarily on meaning:

• Phonetics, the study of the physical properties of speech (or signed) production and perception
• Phonology, the study of sounds (or signs) as discrete, abstract elements in the speaker's mind
that distinguish meaning
• Morphology, the study of internal structures of words and how they can be modified
• Syntax, the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences
• Semantics, the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and fixed word combinations
(phraseology), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences
• Pragmatics, the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts, and the role played by
context and non-linguistic knowledge in the transmission of meaning
• Discourse analysis, the analysis of language use in texts (spoken, written, or signed)
 • Applied linguistics, the study of language-related issues applied in everyday life, notably
language policies, planning, and education. (Constructed language fits under Applied
linguistics.)

Alongside these structurally motivated domains of study are other fields of linguistics, distinguished
by the kinds of non-linguistic factors that they consider:

• Biolinguistics, the study of natural as well as human-taught communication systems in animals,

compared to human language.
• Historical linguistics or diachronic linguistics, the study of language change over time.
• Language geography, the study of the geographical distribution of languages and linguistic
features.
• Linguistic typology, the study of the common properties of diverse unrelated languages,
properties that may, given sufficient attestation, be assumed to be innate to human language
capacity.
• Neurolinguistics, the study of the structures in the human brain that underlie grammar and
communication.
• Psycholinguistics, the study of the cognitive processes and representations underlying language
use.
• Sociolinguistics, the study of variation in language and its relationship with social factors.
• Stylistics, the study of linguistic factors that place a discourse in context.

MAN’S SPEECH PRODUCING ORGANS. ARTICULATORY PHONETICS

The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics. In studying articulation, phoneticians

explain how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological structures.