ORGANS OF SPEECH & THE ENGLISH SOUND SYSTEM

By the end of this topic, you should be able to: List the main organs of speech The functions of each speech organ Describe the airstream mechanisms Describe the place and manner of articulation of the English consonants and vowels

Introduction
The study of the production of human speech sounds is known as articulatory phonetics. phonetics. The production of a speech sound begins with expulsion of air from the lungs through the mouth or nose. (egressive pulmonic airstream mechanism)

The speech sounds of some languages involve the movement of air into the lungs. (ingressive pulmonic airstream mechanism) All English sounds are egressive pulmonic in nature that involves airstream flowing out from the lungs. Different sounds are produced as a result of the obstruction to the airstream, governed by different articulators or organs of speech.

The process of producing speech

The air breathed in lungs the air pressed out mouth cavity windpipe (trachea) larynx pharynx nasal cavity

The principal cavities or resonators: -the pharyngeal cavity -the oral cavity -the nasal cavity The vocal tract: - the long tubular structure formed by the first three cavities.

The Vocal Tract

It is the whole of the air passage above the larynx and it includes:

the oral cavity the nasal cavity the pharyngeal cavity

The most important organs in the vocal tract are the tongue, the soft palate, the lower jaw and the lips. The tongue is the most important organ for speech production: its different postures determine most of the phonemes. phonemes. The soft palate is the muscle that separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.

The Vocal Organs or the Speech Organs (refer to notes)

          

Pharynx Oral Cavity Nasal Cavity Uvula Tongue (tip/blade/front/ middle/back/root) Hard Palate Soft Palate (Velum) Alveolar Ridge (teeth-ridge) Teeth (upper &lower) Lips (upper &lower) Epiglottis

Diagram of the speech organs

The Vocal Folds or Vocal Cords

Speech Production
The 3 processes in speech production:
 Initiation  Phonation  Articulation

The 3 processes in speech production:

Initiation
To produce English sounds, the airstream for speech is initiated by the lungs. When the chest contracts air is pushed out of the lungs, creating an out-flowing outairstream(the airstream(the pulmonic egressive). egressive). However, there are languages that use the alternative initiation. Eg. The Xhosa, a Eg. Xhosa, language spoken in South Africa, uses air which is sucked in to produce some of its sounds called clicks. The click sounds (tut-tut) (tutdo not require air to flow either into or out of the lungs, but air does flow into the oral cavity.

The 3 processes in speech production:

Phonation
A term used to refer to any vocal activity in the larynx which is neither INITIATION nor ARTICULATION. The various kinds of vocal-cord vocalvibration(voicing) vibration(voicing) are the main phonatory activities. Air passing out from the lungs causes the vocal cords to vibrate and voice is produced(voiced). If the vocal cords produced(voiced). are pulled back, they cannot vibrate(voiceless). vibrate(voiceless). Now, say each of the following words aloud and decide if the sound underlined is voiced or voiceless: sal salami orang orange chees cheese cream cream bac bacon

The 3 processes in speech production:

Articulation
A process where the airstream passes through the vocal tract and may be modified by the movement of the articulators, that is by the lips and the tongue obstructing its passage through the vocal tract to varying degrees. The articulatory process can be subdivided into place and manner of articulation.

Place of Articulation
 Bilabial

- these are sounds formed by the articulation of the upper and lower lips, eg: /p/ /b/ /m/ /w/
 Labio-dental Labio-

- labio-dental sounds are produced by the lower lip and the upper incisors, eg: /f/ /v/
 Dental

- these are sounds produced when the tip of the tongue makes contact with the incisors, eg: / / /

Place of Articulation
 Alveolar

- the alveolar sound is produced when the blade or the tip of the tongue touches or come close to the alveolar ridge, eg. /t/ /d/ /n/ /s/ /z/ /l/ /r/
 Post-alveolar/ Post-

palato-alveolar palato-

- these sounds are produced by the blade of the tongue articulating with the junction of the alveolar ridge and the hard palate, eg. / / / / /t / /d /

Place of Articulation
 Palatal

- the palatal sounds is produced by the front of the tongue articulating with the hard palate.
 Velar

- velar sounds are the result of the back of the tongue articulating with the soft palate or velum, eg. /k/ /g/ / /
 Glottal

- the glottal sound is produced when the vocal cords open and close according to the airstream, eg. /h/

The 24 Consonants of English

THE PLOSIVES / STOPS (6)
(so-called because the airflow is stopped or because it is subsequently released, causing an outrush of air and a burst of sound)

as in bat, sob, cubby sob cubby d as in date, hid, ado hid ad g as in gas, lag, ragged lag ragged p as in pet, tap, repeat tap rep t as in tap, pet, attack pet attack k as in king, pick, picking pick pick
b

THE AFFRICATES (2)

a kind of stop consonant, where the expelled air causes friction rather than plosion.

t

as in cheap, hatch cheap, hatch  /d / as in jump, hedge hedge

THE NASAL CONSONANTS (3)

m

as in map, him him n as in knot, tin tin  as in sing, gingham, sing, gingham, dinghy dinghy

THE FRICATIVES (9)

Fricatives come from restricting, but not completely stopping, the airflow. The air passes through a narrow space and the sound arises from the friction this produces. They come in voiced and unvoiced pairs

f

as in fail, life lif  v as in veil, live eil, liv  as in thin, wrath thin, wrath  as in this, bathe this, bathe  s as in soft, miss miss

THE FRICATIVES (9)

z

as in zoo, as as  as in shame, mash shame, mash  / / as in triage, garage, azure triage, garage, azure  h as in home, rehearsal reh

THE LATERALS (2)

Lateral consonants allow the air to escape at the sides of the tongue

l

as in large, gull gull r as in red, jar jar

THE SEMI-VOWELS (2) SEMISemiSemi-vowels do not impede the flow of air. They are all voiced but are counted as consonants chiefly because of how they function in syllables

as in boy, yellow boy w as in wall, cow cow

j

The Vowels
English has twelve vowel sounds. They are sounds. divided into seven short and five long vowels. vowels. An alternative way of organizing them is according to where (in the mouth) they are produced. This method allows us to front, back. describe them as front, central and back. We can qualify them further by how high the tongue and lower jaw are when we make these vowel sounds, and by whether our lips are rounded or spread, and finally by spread, whether they are short or long. long.

The Vowels
Front vowels  /i:/ - cream, seen (long high front spread vowel)  / / - bit, silly (short high front spread vowel)  / / - bet, head (short mid front spread vowel); this may also be shown by the symbol /e/  // - cat, dad (short low front spread vowel)

The Vowels
Central vowels
/ :/ - burn, firm (long mid central spread vowel)  / / - this is sometimes known as schwa, or the neutral vowel sound - it never occurs in a stressed position.  / / - short low front spread vowel; this vowel is quite uncommon among speakers in the Midlands and


further north in Britain.

The Vowels
Back vowels


/u:/ - long high back rounded vowel

/

/ - short high back rounded vowel

also shown by /u/  / :/ - long mid back rounded vowel  / / - short low back rounded vowel  / :/ - long low back spread vowel

Diphthongs
Diphthongs are sounds that begin as one vowel and end as another, while gliding between them. For this reason they are sometimes described as glide vowels. How many are there? Almost every modern authority says eight.  All English diphthongs are falling - that is the first element is stressed more than the second. Other languages have rising diphthongs, where the second element is stressed, as in Italian uomo (man) and uovo (egg).


Now lets try to use the IPA symbols to transcribe the following words:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Steam Collar Sow Cold The Fugitive Exorcist Catch me if you can Because you love me

Phonemes
Phonemes are the different sounds within a language.  is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances.  Thus a phoneme is a group of slightly different sounds which are all perceived to have the same function by speakers of the language or dialect in question. An example of a phoneme is the /k/ sound in ill. the words kit and skill.  In the example, the /k/ in kit is aspirated, aspirated, [k ], while the /k/ in skill is not, [k]


Phones that belong to the same phoneme, /t/, such as [t] and [t ] for English /t/, are called allophones. A common test to allophones. determine whether two phones are allophones or separate phonemes relies on finding minimal pairs: words that differ by pairs: only the phones in question. For example, the words tip and dip illustrate that [t] and [d] are separate phonemes, /t/ and /d/, in /d/, English, English, whereas the lack of such a contrast in Korean (/t ata/ is pronounced [t ada], (/t ata/ [t ada], for example) indicates that in this language they are allophones of a phoneme /t/.

What are minimal pairs?

Minimal pairs are pairs of words whose pronunciation differs at only one segment, such as sheep and segment, ship or lice and rice. rice. Minimal pairs are pairs of words that only have one sound(phoneme) different. But' and bat' are a minimal pair. Only the vowel sound is different.

Transcribe the following minimal pairs:

lit - light bed - bad soot - suit read - red saw - sought but - boot sing sang boot boat why way sock suck

know now look - luck