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Speech Production Columbia University Phon-Phon ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Handout 1 – Speech Production 1. Phonetics is the study of the smallest atoms of language: the physical properties of the mode of communication. a. Auditory-vocal languages: the vocal gestures, sound waves, and auditory perception of speech b. Visual-gestural languages: the manual gestures and visual perception of speech c. This class will focus on auditory-vocal languages. 2. How are speech sounds produced? a. Airstream mechanisms i. Most speech sounds use the pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism: they involve air flowing out from the lungs, through the glottis. • The air comes out either through the nose (nasal sounds) or the mouth (oral sounds). ii. There are also non-pulmonic airstream mechanisms: glottalic sounds are produced by manipulating air pressure from the glottis. iii. Building up pressure from the glottis and releasing it results in a glottalic egressive sound; closing the glottis and sucking air in results in a glottalic ingressive sound. • Why do you think most speech sounds are egressive? What would a pulmonic ingressive sound be like? Do we use them at all in communication? iv. Lingual ingressives create negative pressure using the tongue. When the pressure is released, a click sound results. • What would a lingual egressive sound like? What do we use such sounds for? b. Phonation processes i. Air flows through a passage from the trachea through the larynx, and ultimately, out of the nose or mouth. ii. The larynx contains two folds of muscular tissue called the vocal folds. The space between them is called the glottis. iii. Every segment in every language is either voiced or voiceless: the vocal folds are either open, allowing air to pass freely, or rapidly opening and closing, causing vibration. • Modal voice: “sweet spot” of ordinary voicing • Breathy Voice: higher openness quotient • Creaky voice: lower openness quotient; higher tension, air pops through less regularly • Whisper: open glottis, little vibration c. Oro-nasal processes and articulatory processes i. Once the air passes through the larynx, it flows through out the nose or mouth, manipulated by the articulators to produce hundreds of different sounds. [email protected] Page 1 of 4 Columbia University Phon-Phon ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. The Vocal Tract This is a diagram of the human vocal tract. Every human language uses some of the items labeled here, so no descriptive discussion of language could proceed without it. a. When the vocal folds are open, the opening that they create is called the glottis. Some languages use the glottal stop [ʔ] in their phonetic inventory. The sound is produced by a very fast opening and then closing of the vocal folds, e.g., the Cockney pronunciation of “butter”. b. The pharynx is the cavity just above the vocal folds. While English does not use this for any segments, there are languages that do. Arabic has [ʕ], the pharyngeal fricative. c. The tongue is the biggest articulator. There are four main parts: tip (or apex), front, back, and root. Most oral (non-nasal) sounds are made with the tongue touching another articulator. d. The uvula is a passive articulator; it doesn’t move to make sounds, but the tongue moves to the uvula. French uses the uvular fricative [ʁ], Dutch has the uvular trill [ʀ], and Arabic has the uvular stop [q]. e. Nasal sounds are made by lowering the velum so that air can pass through the nasal cavity, and [email protected] Page 2 of 4 Columbia University Phon-Phon ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ out through the nostrils. In English, we do this in [m, n, ŋ]. The only difference between [n] and [d] is the position of the velum. The velum also interacts with the back of the tonue to produce sounds like [k]. f. The hard palate is the bony ridge just in front of the velum. You can feel this with your tongue; English raises the body (front or back) of the tongue toward the hard palate to make the palatal approximant [j], as in “yellow”. g. The alveolar ridge is the bony bump just behind the teeth. English uses this ridge to make the alveolar sounds [t, d, s, z, n, ɹ, l]. h. The teeth are used in all dental sounds. Sometimes, the tip of the tongue is placed between the teeth; this makes interdental sounds like [θ, ð]. Other times, the lower lip is placed over the upper teeth, and the labiodental sounds [f, v] are made. In Spanish, [t, d] are dental sounds, but in English, they are alveolar. i. Finally, the lips can be used all on their own to make bilabial sounds, like the nasal [m] in English, and the fricative [β] in Spanish. The word “Cuba” uses this sound. 4. Consonant sounds a. We will examine consonant sounds in more detail in the next chapters, but here are some basics. b. Consonants are typically described in terms of five articulatory properties: i. Voicing (are the vocal folds vibrating?) ii. Place of articulation (which articulator is used to produce the sound?) iii. Central vs. lateral articulation (is the air flowing over the center of the tongue, or the side?) iv. Oral vs. nasal articulation (is the air flowing out of the mouth or the nose?) v. Manner of articulation (how is the flow of air restricted or stopped in the mouth?) c. Voicing and manner of articulation are perhaps the easiest properties to observe in the acoustic structure of consonants; we will learn to spot these distinctions in waveforms. 5. Vowel sounds a. Vowels are typically described in terms of four articulatory properties: i. Tongue height ii. Tongue backness iii. Lip rounding iv. Tense vs. lax tongue root b. Acoustic distinctions between vowels can be seen in their formants, concentrations of energy at different frequencies; we will learn to spot these distinctions in spectrograms. c. Besides the fundamental frequency, corresponding to what we hear as the pitch of the voice, different shapes of the vocal tract (because of tongue and lip position, etc.) generate different resonances or overtone pitches. These overtones are responsible for the difference between [i] and [u], or between middle C on an oboe vs. a flute, for example. [email protected] Page 3 of 4 Columbia University Phon-Phon ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6. Segments and Suprasegmentals a. Segments are the discrete sound units of the speech. We represent them with the graphemes of the International Phonetic Alphabet. i. NOTE: This is an abstraction—we are encroaching on the abstract territory of phonology; the speech stream is not acoustically or auditorially discrete (look at a waveform), but the language system treats it as discrete. b. Suprasegmentals are properties that associate with segments or groups of segments, but that are not segments themselves. These are features like duration (length), frequency (pitch/tone), and amplitude (loudness). In phonetic transcription, suprasegmentals are represented with diacritic symbols written next to, above, or below segmental symbols. [email protected] Page 4 of 4 .
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