From Speech Physiology to Linguistic Phonetics (Marchal/From Speech) || Elements of Articulatory Typology

✍ Scribed by Marchal, Alain

• Publisher: ISTE
• Year: 2010
• Weight: 350 KB
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 1848211139
• DOI: 10.1002/9780470611869.ch5

✦ Synopsis

In the preceding chapters we have expounded the anatomical and physiological bases for speech production. We have described how the respiratory, laryngeal and digestive systems can be recruited to emit sounds. In this chapter we present a synthetic view of how languages exploit all these resources for linguistic ends. We indicate how a description of the sounds of the world's languages can be organized on the basis of speech production. These elements of phonetic description based on articulatory considerations can also serve to account for the variability of speech at various levels, whether idiosyncratic, interindividual, expressive or pathological. These elements will constitute the premises of a phonetic theory of performance. We will consider in turn aerodynamic mechanisms, phonatory modes and articulation.

Aerodynamic mechanisms

Pulmonary initiation

5.1.1.1. Egressive airflow

The airflow used in speech production is initiated by an organ or an articulator. The lungs constitute the main initiator. During exhalation, air flows out of the body and the flow is controlled by the respiratory muscles: this is egressive airflow. The vast majority of phonemes are produced by the modulation of egressive pulmonary air (see Table .1).