The Air-stream Mechanism

The Air-stream Mechanism

             Air is the necessary part of speech sounds. Without air we cannot articulate most of the words. Whenever we speak something, it is the results of air which we breathes in or breathes out. To experiment one can put a palm below nostrils to feel the air coming out from the body and as per T. Balasubramanian,

"When we articulate any speech sound from English, the air from our lungs goes out into the outer atmosphere either through our mouth or through our nostrils"

         The way this air-streams works is called 'Air-stream mechanism". There are three main air-stream mechanisms, these are called, Pulmonic, Glottalic and Velaric.

1. Pulmonic air-stream mechanism:

         The word Pulmonic means connected with lungs or concerning the lungs. This air-stream uses air from lungs. For most of articulation we use the air which we breathe out. An air-stream which goes out is called 'egressive air-mechanism'. For most of articulations we use a pulmonic egressive air-stream mechanism.

       Pulmonic air-stream mechanism involves lungs and respiratory muscles. An air-stream which goes in is called 'ingressive air-stream'. This is called pulmonic ingressive air-stream mechanism. It is possible to speak with this mechanism but we do not use it for speaking but we use it for yawning and snoring.

2. Glottalic air-stream mechanism:

        This air-stream involves the closed glottis and vocal cords. The air in the pharynx helps in producing the speech sounds so this air-stream is also known as pharyngeal, but there is a slight differance between pharyngeal sounds and glottal sounds. For example, hen hat sounds are glottal sounds and pharyngeal sounds do not occur in several Indian languages and English languages, but it represents in Urdu/Arabic letters.

        In this mechanism both ingressive and egressive are used to produce speech sounds of many languages. Sindhi has sounds articulated with a glottalic ingressive air-stream mechanism.

3. Velaric air-stream mechanism:

       Velar is a sound which can be produced with the help of the back of the tongue as an active articulation and the soft-palate as a passive articulator. This articulation is produced by combining closure of velum and lowering of the tongue. For example in English, skin, God, and think are velar sounds.