The Lungs

Almost all speech sounds are produced by the energy from the respiratory system from which the air is pushed out of the lungs. Pressure on the lungs from the surrounding muscles causes a flow of air into the vocal tract. Air goes up the windpipe (the trachea) and into the larynx. (See the picture below). In larynx there are vocal cords. The sounds of speech both consonants and vowels are produced by the use of air flow from the lungs to the outside through either the mouth (oral cavity) or the nose (nasal cavity).

Other Speech Organs

Note that there are two cavities through which the air that comes from the lungs can go outside: One within the mouth (oral cavity) and the other within the nose (nasal cavity). Tongue, lips, teeth, palate are important organs that help us produce various sounds. For example, try to pronounce the word baston. When you produce the [b ] sound, you use both of your lips, when you produce [s], your tongue touches at the roof of your mouth (palate), etc.

Lips: The position and the use of lips are important in producing some consonants and vowels, as we will see later.

Teeth: We use our upper or lower teeth or air may go through our teeth when we produce some consonants.

Alveolar Ridge: The small ridge behind our teeth and immediately in front of the palate is called the alveolar ridge.

Tongue: Different parts of our tongue are used when we produce some sounds.

Palate: Our tongue touches to the palate during the production of some speech sounds such as [y].

Vocal cords: The two small muscular cords that are inside the larynx. They are used to produce sounds. (We will talk about vocal cords in Task 2.3).

Glottis: The space between the vocal cords is known as glottis.

Larynx: The larynx is a tube that is located in the upper part of the trachea and it contains the vocal cords.

Velum: The velum is the soft part of the roof of the mouth behind the hard palate. It is the place where we produce sounds such as [k], as we shall see later.

Consonant Features

When we produce sounds, our vocal cords may vibrate or not; the air stream may go out from the mouth or the nose. We use various parts of our speech organs. We also obstruct the air stream in some way or another. We classify consonants based on the following features:

Voicing: Vocal cords vibrate or not? Voiced vs. voiceless
Velum: Lowered or not? Nasal vs. oral
The place of Articulation: Where the obstruction takes place
The Manner of Articulation: The amount of obstruction: Total, partial, or relatively open.

Voicing

Remember that the air from the lungs go up to the larynx. Here the air passes through the two vocal cords. If the vocal cords vibrate when we produce the sound, it is said to be a voiced sound; if the vocal cords do not vibrate, the sound is voiceless. In order to understand the voicing difference, put your finger on your throat and try to pronounce a long [zzzzzzz] vs. a long [ssssss] sound. In which case do you feel vibration? In the former, right? You can also hear the distinction if you close your ears when you produce [zzzzzzz] vs. [ssssss] sounds. Now, compare the following sounds in terms of voicing:

[b ] vs. [p] as in bat vs. pat
[v] vs. [f] as in vat vs. fat
[d] vs. [t] as in dare vs. tear
[g] vs. [k] as in goat vs. coat

Oral or Nasal

Oral means related to the mouth and nasal means related to the nose. In the case of oral sounds, the airflow goes out of our mouth; and in the case of nasal sounds, the airflow goes out of our nasal cavity. This is closely linked with the positioning of the velum, as you can see in the following pictures. In the case of oral sounds, the velum is raised allowing the air to flow from the mouth. In the case of nasal sounds, the velum is lowered to allow the air to pass through the nasal cavity. The consonants at the final position in the following words are nasal: Kin, Sam, king. Oral vs. nasal distinction is not only a feature of consonants; vowels can also be oral or nasal sounds.

Place of Articulation

Bilabials: Bilabial sounds are produced by using both our upper and lower lips. The air is obstructed by our lips. The initial sounds in words pen, bay, my are all bilabial sounds. The following picture shows that the upper and lower lips come together and the air is obstructed by the lips when the following sounds are being produced: [p], [b ], [m].

Labiodentals: Labiodental sounds are used with our upper teeth and lower lip. We produce labiodental sounds when we produce the first sounds in words such as fazla, vakit, and the final sounds in laugh, tough. You can see how labiodental sounds are produced in the following picture.

Interdentals: Interdentals are produced by touching the tip of the tongue between the teeth. The two interdental sounds in English are the initial sounds in words such as the and through. The way in which these sounds are produced can be seen in the diagram given below:

Alveolars: Alveolar sounds are produced by touching our tongue to the alveolar ridge. Try to produce sounds such as [t, d, s, z, n]. You will feel that your tongue touches at the alveolar ridge. See the following picture to see how alveolar sounds are produced.

Palatals: Palatals are sounds produced when the tip of the tongue touches at the palate. The sound [y] as in yes is a palatal sound.

Alveo-palatals: These sounds are produced by raising the tongue to an area between the alveolar ridge and the palate. For example, the first sound in shine is an alveo-palatal.

Velar: Velar is a sound that is produced when the back of the tongue comes into contact with the velum. [k, g] sounds as in kettle and game are velars.

Glottal: A sound that is produced at the glottis is called a glottal sound. English has two glottal sounds. One is the initial sound, i.e. [h] in words such as high, house and hotel. The other is known as a glottal stop, which is represented as and can be heard in uh-uh.

Manner of Articulation

We defined consonants in terms of their place of articulation in the previous section. You have seen that there are alveolar sounds such as [d, t, n]. We need to distinguish these sounds from one another and to describe them accurately and more precisely. You will understand what this means when you answer Questions 1 and 2 below:

Manner of articulation describes how articulation can be accomplished. The speech organs such as lips, tongue, velum, and glottis can be positioned differently in the production of different sounds. Manner of articulation is related to the degree closure of articulators.

We start with sounds that are produced with the most obstruction of the airflow.

Stops:

Stops are consonant sounds that are produced with a complete closure of the airflow for a moment and then suddenly releasing it. Try to pronounce sounds, such as: [p], [t], [k], [b ], [d], and [g]. They are all stop sounds.

Fricatives:

Fricatives are consonants that are produced when the airflow passes through a narrow opening in the vocal tract and so a friction takes place. Some fricatives are [f], [s], [v], among others.

Affricates:

Affricates are consonant sounds which are produced with a closure of the air and then a release of the airflow with a frication. The voiceless affricate is [c], like the sound at the beginning and end of the word church. The voiced fricative is [j] as in the initial sound of the word John.

Approximants:

In producing approximants, one of the speech organs comes close to another, but the vocal tract is not narrowed. For example, our tongue is raised to our palate when we produce [y] as in yes, but note that there is no turbulence of air. The sound [w], as in we, is produced with the approximation of the two lips. That is why it is known as a bilabial sound. Again there is y less no obstruction of airflow.

The sounds [y] and [w] are also sometimes called semi-vowels or glides, because they are produced with tongue gliding. They are known as semi-vowels, because they are produced with no narrowing in the vocal tract the way like vowels are produced. However, they function like consonants because they begin syllables. These are both voiced consonants.

There are also approximant sounds which are produced by incomplete closure and by the contact of the tongue with the alveolar ridge. Then, the air goes out between the sides of tongue. These sounds are [l] and [r], as in led and red. These sounds are also known as liquids.

In your textbook [h] is also considered to be an approximant. This sound can be seen at the initial position of a word like hotel.

The glottal stop and flap:

The glottal stop is produced when the glottis is closed completely very shortly and then released. It is like the sound produced when we say ıh-ıh, meaning no in Turkish. It can be observed in some varieties of English when speakers produce words, such as butter. It is not used in the Standard varieties of English.

In American English, when [t] occurs between two vowels, and if the syllable before [t] is stressed and if the syllable that follows is unstressed, the flap is used. It is not used in British English. The flap is very much like [d], but it is produced more rapidly. It is produced by touching the tongue to the alveolar ridge strongly and rapidly. The flap can be observed in words such as, letter, city, writer, better, etc. The flap is a voiced consonant and it is represented with [D] or . For American English speakers, the following words are pronounced similarly, because [t] sounds are produced as flaps: metal-medal, latter-ladder, bitter-bidder.

Classification of Vowels

We need to classify vowels by using different features than consonants. Vowels are sounds that are produced with a relatively open vocal tract and they are usually voiced. Vowels can be described in terms of the following criteria:

The height of the tongue in the vocal tract: The tongue position can be high, mid, or low. For example, try to produce the vowels in the following Turkish words: il, el, al. You will realize that you open your mouth somewhat wider as you change from il to el and even wider as you produce al. Can you notice the differences?

High vowels are produced with your mouth less open but the tongue body is high. On the other hand, low vowels are produced with your mouth open and your tongue lowered. Mid vowels are produced with immediate tongue height and your mouth is relatively more open than in the case of high vowels but less open than in the case of pronouncing low vowels.

The tongue position in the mouth: You can push you tongue forward or backward in your mouth when producing vowels. Try to produce the vowels in the Turkish words bil and bul. You will realize that when you pronounce these vowels in that order your tongue changes from front to back position. The tongue is pushed forward in high vowels and it is pulled back in back vowels.

Lip Rounding: Try to produce the vowels in the Turkish words bil and bul again. You will feel that when you produce the vowel in bil, there is no lip rounding; while in the case of bul, you will feel that your lips are rounded or (protruded). Round vowels are produced with lip rounding; while unrounded vowels are produced without lip rounding.

Some Examples of English Diphthongs:

The following diphthongs exist in English:

[ay]: when you pronounce this diphthong, your tongue starts out in the position for [a] and it moves forward to the position of [y] (or [i]). Some examples are found in words such as eye, file, find, height, tired, hire, hide, wife, and sight.

[aw]: when you produce this diphthong, the tongue starts at the position of [a] and moves to that of [w] (or ). Some examples are found in words such as how, down, out, loud, cow, bow.

[oy]: In this case, the tongue moves from back (the position of [o] to the front position of [y] (or [i]). Some examples are found in words such as boy and toy.

Son düzenleme tarihi: 08-04-2007 04:41 PM. Düzenleyen: FoX.

1) Which features distinguish the sounds [b] and [m]?

A oral vs. nasal

B voiced vs. voiceless

C bilabial vs. velar

D velar vs. inter-dental

E none of the above


2) In what feature(s) does [d] differ from [t] and [n]?

A nasal, voiceless, alveolar,

B oral, voiced, alveolar,

C oral, voiceless, inter-dental

D nasal, voiced, alveolar

E oral, voiced, alveo-palatal


3) Which word contains an inter-dental fricative?

A measure

B nature

C method

D talk

E leader


4) Which word contains a rounded vowel?

A me

B who

C but

D hard

E blood


5) Which word(s) begin with an alveolar consonant?

A zip

B sip

C tip

D nip

E All of the above


6) Which word(s) contain(s) a diphthong?

A said

B boot

C bite

D bird

E bet


7) Which word contains a low front vowel?

A body

B could

C wish

D sad

E fall


8) Which word(s) is / are pronounced as [deyz] ?

A days

B daze

C daisy

D these

E both (a) and (b)


9) Which word begins with a voiceless velar stop?

A chaste

B shave

C sure

D chorus

E glad


10) In which of the following word(s) is [t] or [d] is likely to be used as a flap in American English?

A reader

B heat

C pattern

D talk

E adore


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ANSWER KEY

1 A
2 B
3 C
4 B
5 E
6 C
7 D
8 E
9 D
10 C

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