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ARTICULATORS AND SOME BASIC CONCEPTS

1. Speech sounds 2. Articulation 3. Airstream mechanism 4. Phonetics 5. Vocal tract 6. Articulators and places of articulation 7. Vowels vs. Consonants

1. SPEECH SOUNDS
The sounds of speech, or speech sounds, are vocal sounds which are organized to communicate information. In other words, a speech sound is any of the set of distinctive sounds of a given language.

2. ARTICULATION

The formation of individual speech sounds is called articulation.

3. AIRSTREAM MECHANISIM
The production of any speech sound (or any sound at all) involves the movement of an airstream. Most speech sounds are produced by pushing lung air out of the body through the mouth and sometimes through the nose. Since lung air is used, these sounds are called pulmonic (belonging/related to the lung) sounds; since the air is pushed out, they are call egressive (e-: out; gress: go). The majority of sounds used in languages of the world are thus produced by pulmonic egressive airstream mechanisms. All the sounds in English are produced in this manner.
[Fromklin and Rodman, 1993:186-187]
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4. PHONETICS
The study of speech sounds is called phonetics.
[Fromklin and Rodman, 1993:232]

The study of how sounds are produced and how the position of the mouth can be changed to produce different sounds is called phonetics.
[Avery & Ehrlich, 1995:11]

5. THE VOCAL TRACT

The vocal tract: the air passages involved in the production of speech sounds, including: The nasal cavity: the air passage within and behind the nose. The oral cavity: the air passage within the mouth. The pharynx: the air passage extending from the larynx up to the back of the mouth.
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6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION

- Articulators: the movable parts of the mouth, including the bottom lip, the bottom teeth, the tongue, and the jaw.

In the production of speech sounds, when the articulators approach the upper unmovable parts of the mouth, they will produce different sounds.
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6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION

Places of articulation: the unmovable parts of the mouth involved in the articulation of speech sounds. Figure 1 shows the articulators and places of articulation in the human body.
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6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION

6.1. The upper lip and the lower lip 6.2. The upper teeth and the lower teeth 6.3. The tongue (figure 2): - a very important articulator. - can be moved to different places and have different shapes. - theoretically divided into different parts: the tongue tip, the tongue blade, the tongue front, the tongue back and the root

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6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION

6.4. The alveolar ridge is between the top front teeth and the hard palate. 6.5. The palate: - The hard palate: the front part of the roof of the mouth.

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6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION

6.5. The palate: - The soft palate (velum): the muscular flap at the back of the mouth that can be raised to press against the back wall of the pharynx and shut off the nasal cavity, preventing air from going out through the nose. - - The point at the end of the soft palate is called uvula.

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6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION

The tip and the blade lie under the alveolar ridge, the front lies under the hard palate and the back lies under the soft palate.

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6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION

6.6. The Larynx (The voice-box) The larynxs main structure is made of cartilage, including two large ones: - thyroid cartilage (above, larger) - cricoids cartilage (below, smaller). These are hollow and are attached to the top of the trachea (the wind-pipe).

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6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION 6.7. The vocal cords (vocal folds/vocal bands): - two small bands of elastic tissue inside the larynx - look like two flat strips of rubber, lying opposite each other across the air passage. At the front, they are joined together and fixed to the inside of the thyroid cartilage. At the back, they are attached to a pair of small cartilages called the arytenoids cartilages so that if the arytenoids cartilages move, the vocal cords move too.
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6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION

Figure 5 shows the cross section of larynx. 6.8. The glottis - The space/opening between the vocal cords.

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6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION 6.8. The glottis: - Easily recognized in four states: Open: resulting in voiceless consonants. Vocal cords are wide apart. Narrowed: resulting in voiceless glottal fricative /h/, produced by the friction right at the narrowed glottis when airflow passes through it. Closed or nearly closed: the edges of the vocal folds touch or nearly touch together, air passing through the glottis causes vibration, resulting in voiced sounds. Tightly closed: resulting in the glottal stop /?/, produced by the rapid closing of the glottis, strapping the airflow from the lungs behind it, followed by a sudden release of the air 17 as the glottis is opened.

6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION

6.9. The jaws are sometimes called articulators because we certainly move the lower jaw a lot in speaking. But the jaws are not articulators in the same ways as the others, because they cannot themselves make contact with other articulators.

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6. ARTICULATORS AND PLACES OF ARTICULATION

Figure 7 shows all the articulators and places of articulation introduced in this lesson.

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7. VOWELS VS. CONSONANTS

Vowels and consonants can be distinguished thanks to the two following criteria.
1. The way they are produced (phonetically):

+ In the production of vowels, the air flows continuously from the larynx to the lips; there is no obstruction and no narrowing that could cause audible friction. + In the production of consonants, the airflow from the lungs is obstructed or interfered at some place in the vocal tract.
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7. VOWELS VS. CONSONANTS

- Their distribution in English (phonologically): Consonants usually occupy the initial position in English words and are frequently followed by vowels.
But its not easy to decide. For example, the /j/ in yet, the /w/ in wet and the /h/ in hay do not obstruct the airflow more than some vowels do. However, they are typically consonantal in English they usually occur in the initial position and are always followed by vowels. => Phonetically, they are like vowels; phonologically, they function as consonants.
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