THE SUBJECT OF PHONETICS THE ORGANS OF SPEECH

Language is the most important means of human intercourse. People In order to study sounds of speech it is necessary to have an idea of
use language in order to understand each other. Spoken and written words organs of speech. There are three cavities in the speech apparatus. 1. The
consist of speech sounds. Letters serve to represent spoken words in mouth cavity. 2. The nasal cavity. 3. The pharynx. The organs of speech
writing only. Phonetics studies sounds of speech and their aspects and are as follows:
functions. Phonetics also studies syllable, stress, intonation, phonostyles, The lungs, the wind pipe, the larynx, the vocal cords, the glottis (the
relation of sounds to writing, rules of reading etc. space between the vocal cords), the back wall of the pharynx, the soft
Phonetics is an essential part of language and it gives language a palate with the uvula, the hard palate, the teeth ridge (alveoli), the teeth,
definite form. The other branches of linguistics can function only when the lips, the tongue: the tip of the tongue: the blade of the tongue, the front
they have phonetic form. So grammar, lexicology, stylistics depend on of the tongue, the back of the tongue, the root of the tongue, the lower
phonetics because all grammatical, lexical, as well as stylistic means are jaw, the upper jaw.
expressed phonetically. All words of a language live in definite phonetic The tongue is the most important organ of speech. The tongue
forms and one word may differ from another in one sound only. Therefore consists of several parts: the part which is opposite the soft palate is called
the basis of the phonetic structure of a language is its system of the back part of the tongue; the part which is opposite the hard palate is
phonemes.1 called the front part of the tongue; the part which lies opposite the
A phoneme is a speech sound which is capable to distinguish the junction of the hard and the soft palate is called the central part of the
meaning of one word from another word of the same language e.g. bag- tongue. The part which lies under the teeth-ridge is called the blade of the
back; bad-bed. tongue and its tip. The position of the lips in pronouncing sounds may be
Besides, a phoneme may distinguish one grammatical form of a neutral, spread, rounded and protruded.
word from another grammatical form of the same word e.g. man – men;
advice-advise.
The sounds by which a phoneme is realized in speech are called its
variants or allophones e.g. the [t] sound in the words tree, tall, eighth are
various allophones of the phoneme [t]. Though they are different from nasal cavity
nose
articulatory and acoustic point of view they cannot change the meaning or alveolar hard palate
ridge
grammatical forms of words. Phonemes usually occur in the same ut h ca v ity soft palate
mo ph
phonetic position but allophones in different positions. Compare: lips teeth ar uvula
y
n back of the pharynx
phonemes cup – cut; tenth – tense; sad – sat; hand – land etc. x

tip epiglottis
allophones: let (soft) – tell (dark); telling (soft) belt (dark) blade
tongue front
back oesophagus
root
larynx
wind pipe
vocal cords

Organs of speech (schematic diagram)

1
Dünyanın 120 yerində mərkəzi olan Yaponiyanın ―Sony‖ (Language Laboratory
System) korporasiyanın gəldiyi nəticə belədir ki, ―Language is basically sound‖.

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