"egressive" - 1 õppematerjal

Mid-term 1 in English Phonetics and Phonology

Complementary distribution ­ phonetic units that never occur in the same environment are said to be in complementary distribution. For example, clear/l/ and dark/l/. NB! The sounds we produce and hear are continuous: we move our organs of speech continuously and produce a continuous signal ­ still it is possible to divide speech into units, which is called segmentation. The sounds of languages can be produced by: pushing air out of the lungs through the vocal tract (pulmonic, egressive) sucking the air into the mouth (ingressive) NB! Without air we cannot produce sound. There are two classes of sounds: consonants vowels Consonants are produced with some restriction or closure in the vocal tract that impedes the flow of air from the lungs. Vowels are produced so that the airstream is relatively unobstructed. NB! Any speech sound will always exhibit two components in some form or other: An activity that initiates a flow of air (i.e