Processes of Speech

1
Processes of Speech

• Respiration
• Lungs energy source
• Phonation
• Larynx sound source
• Resonation
• Resonators sound amplifiers/dampeners
• Articulation
• Articulators sound modifiers

2
Main Processor

• Nervous system
• Central nervous system
• Brain
• Spinal cord
• Peripheral nervous system
• Nerves

3
Classifying Sounds of English

• Vowels and Consonants
• What makes a vowel a vowel?
• What makes a consonant a consonant?

4
Consonant Classification

• Placement of articulators
• Passive and active articulators
• Manner of air flow
• Where and how does air flow?
• Voiced or voiceless
• Are the vocal folds vibrating or not?

5
Placement of articulators

• Labials - lips
• Dentals - teeth
• Alveolars alveolar ridge
• Palatals hard palate
• Velars soft palate
• Glottals glottis

6
Manner of airflow

• Stops
• Fricatives
• Affricates
• Liquids
• Glides
• Nasals

7
Voiced vs. voiceless

• Voiced phonemes
• Vocal fold vibration
• All vowels are voiced
• Some English consonants are voiced
• Voiceless phonemes
• No vocal fold vibration
• Cognate pairs with voiced partners

8
Other manners of airflow

• Obstruents
• Produced with obstructed vocal tract
• Includes fricatives, affricates, and stops
• Sonorants
• Produced with relatively open vocal tract
• Includes liquids, glides and nasals
• Approximants
• Produced with relatively open oral tract
• Includes liquids and glides

9
Other manners (continued)

• Stridents
• Produced by directing airflow against a surface
• Creates considerable friction
• Includes /f, v, s, z, ?, ?, t?, d?/
• Sibilants
• Subset of stridents
• Hissing/hushing sounds
• Includes /s, z, ?, ?, t?, d?/
• Laterals
• Made with lateral airflow
• Includes the /l/
• http//www.uiowa.edu/acadtech/phonetics/about.htm
  l

10
Website for consonant classification

• http//www.uiowa.edu/acadtech/phonetics/english/f
  rameset.html

11
Vowel Classification

• Tongue position
• Tongue height in the oral cavity
• High mid low
• Tongue advancement
• Front central back
• Lip rounding
• Front vowels lip retraction
• Back vowels lip rounding

12
Vowel chart
Retracted lips --------------------Rounded lips
13
Distinctive Features

• A binary classification system indicating the
  presence or absence of a feature
• Can classify vowels or consonants
• Is it rounded or not rounded?

-
/w/
/l/
14
Chomsky Halle (1968)Distinctive Features

• Vocalic like a vowel
• Consonantal like a consonant
• High body of tongue elevated

15
Distinctive Features (continued)

• Back tongue elevates to velum
• Low tongue in lowest position /h/
• Anterior sound made with articulators at
  alveolar ridge or forward
• Coronal sound made with tongue blade raised
• Round lips rounded

16
Distinctive Features (continued)

• Tense degree of muscle tension

• Continuant flow of air not stopped
• Nasal sounds resonated in nasal
• cavity

17
Distinctive Features (continued)

• Strident forced airstream creates intense noise
  quality to sounds
• Sonorant unimpeded sound through oral cavity
• Interrupted completely blocked airflow at some
  point in production
• Lateral air flows along the lateral margins of
  tongue
• Voice vibrating vocal folds