AIR STREAM :

In phonetics, the airstream mechanism is the method by which airflow is

created in the vocal tract. Along with phonation and articulation, it is one of three main
components of speech production. The airstream mechanism is mandatory for sound production
and constitutes the first part of this process, which is called initiation.
The organ generating the airstream is called the initiator and there are three initiators used in
spoken human languages:

 the diaphragm together with the ribs and lungs (pulmonic mechanisms),

 the glottis (glottalic mechanisms), and
 the tongue (lingual or "velaric" mechanisms).

Though not used in any language, the cheeks may be used to generate the

airstream (buccal mechanism, notated {ↀ} in VoQS). See buccal speech.
After a laryngectomy, the esophagus may be used as the initiator (notated {Œ} for simple
esophageal speech and {Ю} for tracheo-esophageal speech in VoQS). See esophageal speech.
Percussive consonants are produced without any airstream mechanism.
 TYPES OF AIR STREAM :
Any of the three initiators − diaphragm, glottis or tongue −
may act by either increasing or decreasing the pressure generating the airstream. These changes
in pressure often correspond to outward and inward airflow, and are therefore
termed egressive and ingressive respectively.
Of these six resulting airstream mechanisms, four are found lexically around the world:

 Pulmonic egressive, where the air is pushed out of the lungs by the ribs and diaphragm. All
human languages employ such sounds (such as vowels), and nearly three out of four use
them exclusively.

 Glottalic egressive, where the air column is compressed as the glottis moves upward. Such

consonants are called ejectives. Ejective and ejective-like consonants occur in 16% of the
languages.

 Glottalic ingressive, where the air column is rarefied as the glottis moves downward. Such
consonants are called implosives. Implosive and implosive-like consonants occur in 13% of
the world's languages. Despite the name, the airstream may not actually flow inward: While
the glottis moves downward, pulmonic air passes outward through it, but the reduction in
pressure makes an audible difference to the sound

 Lingual ingressive, AKA velaric ingressive, where the air in the mouth is rarefied by a

downward movement of the tongue. These are the click consonants. Clicks are regular
sounds in ordinary words in fewer than 2% of the world's languages, all in Africa.[2]

These mechanisms may be combined into airstream contours, such as clicks which release into
ejectives.
The Khoisan languages have pulmonic, ejective, and click consonants, the Chadic languages have
pulmonic, implosive, and ejective consonants, and the Nguni languages utilize all four, pulmonic,
click, implosive, and ejective, in normal vocabulary. Most other languages utilize only one or two
airstream mechanisms.
In interjections, the other two mechanisms may be employed. For example, in countries as
diverse as Sweden, Turkey, and Togo, a pulmonic ingressive ("gasped" or "inhaled") vowel is used
for back-channeling or to express agreement, and in France a lingual egressive (a "spurt") is used
to express dismissal. The only language where such sounds are known to be contrastive in
normal vocabulary is the extinct ritual language Damin (also the only language outside Africa
with clicks); however, Damin appears to have been intentionally designed to differ from normal
speech.
 1. Pulmonic initiation::
Initiation by means of the lungs (actually the
diaphragm and ribs) is called pulmonic initiation. The vast majority of sounds used in
human languages are pulmonic egressives. In most languages, including all the
languages of Europe (excluding the Caucasus), all phonemes are pulmonic
egressives.
The only attested use of a phonemic pulmonic ingressive is a lateral fricative
in Damin, a ritual language formerly used by speakers of Lardil in Australia. This can
be written with the extended version of the International Phonetic
Alphabet as [ɬ↓]. !Xóõ has ingression as a phonetic detail in one series of its clicks,
which are ingressive voiceless nasals with delayed aspiration, [↓ŋ̊ ʘʰ ↓ŋ̊ ǀʰ ↓ŋ̊ ǁʰ ↓ŋ̊ !
ʰ ↓ŋ̊ ǂʰ]. Peter Ladefoged considers these to be among the most difficult sounds in
the world. Other languages, for example in Taiwan, have been claimed to have
pulmonic ingressives, but these claims have either proven to be spurious or to be
occasional phonetic detail.
In interjections, but not in normal words, pulmonic ingressive vowels or words occur
on all continents.[3] This is commonly done for back-channeling (as with [ə↓] in Ewe)
or affirmation (as with [ɸʷ↓] in Swedish). In English, an audible intake of
breath, [hːː↓], or an indrawn consonant such as [tʰ↓] or [p͡t↓] is used in a
conversation to indicate that someone is about to speak or is preparing to continue
speaking.[4] In some languages, such as Finnish and Amharic, entire phrases may be
uttered with an ingressive airstream. (See ingressive sound.)

2. Glottalic initiation::
It is possible to initiate airflow in the upper vocal
tract by means of the vocal cords or glottis. This is known as glottalic initiation.
For egressive glottalic initiation, one lowers the glottis (as if to sing a low note), closes it as for
a glottal stop, and then raises it, building up pressure in the oral cavity and upper trachea.
Glottalic egressives are called ejectives. The glottis must be fully closed to form glottalic
egressives, or the air column would flow backwards over it; it is therefore impossible to
pronounce voiced ejectives. Ejective allophones of voiceless stops occur in many varieties of
English at the ends of intonation units.[5]
For ingressive glottalic initiation, the sequence of actions performed in glottalic pressure
initiation is reversed:  one raises the glottis (as if to sing a high note), closes it, and then lowers it
to create suction in the upper trachea and oral cavity. Glottalic ingressives are called implosives,
although they may involve zero airflow rather than actual inflow. Because the air column would
flow forwards over the descending glottis, it is not necessary to fully close it, and implosives may
be voiced; indeed, voiceless implosives are exceedingly rare.
It is usual for implosives to be voiced. Instead of keeping the glottis tightly closed, it is tensed but
left slightly open to allow a thin stream of air through. Unlike pulmonic voiced sounds, in which a
stream of air passes through a usually-fixed glottis, in voiced implosives a mobile glottis passes
over a nearly motionless air column to cause vibration of the vocal cords. Phonations that are
more open than modal voice, such as breathy voice, are not conducive to glottalic sounds
because in these the glottis is held relatively open, allowing air to readily flow through and
preventing a significant pressure difference from building up behind the articulator.
Because the oral cavity is so much smaller than the lungs, vowels and approximants cannot be
pronounced with glottalic initiation. So-called glottalized vowels and other sonorants use the
more common pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.
There is no clear divide between pulmonic and glottalic sounds. Some languages may have
consonants which are intermediate. For example, glottalized consonants in London English, such
as the t in rat [ˈɹæʔt], may be weakly ejective. Similarly, fully voiced stops in languages such
as Thai, Zulu, and Maidu are weakly implosive. This ambiguity does not occur with the next
airstream mechanism, lingual, which is clearly distinct from pulmonic sounds.

3. Lingual (velaric) initiation::

The third form of
initiation in human language is lingual or velaric initiation, where a sound is produced by a
closure at two places of articulation, and the airstream is formed by movement of the body of
the tongue. Lingual stops are more commonly known as clicks, and are almost universally
ingressive. The word lingual is derived from Latin lingua, which means tongue.
To produce a lingual ingressive airstream, first close the vocal tract at two places: at the back of
the tongue, as in a velar or uvular stop, and simultaneously with the front of the tongue or the
lips, as in a coronal or bilabial stop. These holds may be voiceless, voiced, or nasalized. Then
lower the body of the tongue to rarefy the air above it. The closure at the front of the tongue is
opened first, as the click "release"; then the closure at the back is released for the pulmonic or
glottalic click "accompaniment" or "efflux". This may be aspirated, affricated, or even ejective.
Even when not ejective, it is not uncommon for the glottis to be closed as well, for a triply
articulated consonant, and this third closure is released last to produce a glottalized click. Clicks
are found in very few languages, notably the Khoisan languages of southern Africa and some
nearby tongues such as Zulu. They are more often found in extra-linguistic contexts, such as the
"tsk tsk" sound many Westerners use to express regret or pity (a dental click), or the clucking
noise used by many equestrians to urge on their horses (a lateral click).
Lingual egressive initiation is performed by reversing the sequence of a lingual ingressive: the
front and back of the tongue (or lips and back of the tongue) seal off the vocal cavity, and the
cheeks and middle of the tongue move inward and upward to increase oral pressure. The only
attested use of a lingual egressive is a bilabial nasal egressive click in Damin. Transcribing this
also requires the use of the Extended IPA, [ŋʘ↑].
Since the air pocket used to initiate lingual consonants is so small, it is not thought to be possible
to produce lingual fricatives,[citation needed] vowels, or other sounds which require continuous
airflow.
Clicks may be voiced, but they are more easily nasalized. This may be because the vocal cavity
behind the rearmost closure, behind which the air passing through the glottis for voicing must be
contained, is so small that clicks cannot be voiced for long. Allowing the airstream to pass
through the nose enables a longer production.
Nasal clicks involve a combination of lingual and pulmonic mechanisms. The velum is lowered so
as to direct pulmonic airflow through the nasal cavity during the lingual initiation. This nasal
airflow may itself be egressive or ingressive, independently of the lingual initiation of the click.
Nasal clicks may be voiced, but are very commonly unvoiced and even aspirated, which is rare
for purely pulmonic nasals
Airstream contours::
In some treatments, complex clicks are posited to have airstream contours, in which the
airstream changes between the front (click) and rear (non-click) release. There are two
attested types: Linguo-pulmonic consonants, where the rear release is a uvular obstruent
such as [q] or [χ]; and linguo-glottalic consonants, where the rear release is an ejective
such as [qʼ] or [qχʼ].
Simultaneous (rather than contour) implosive clicks, e.g. velar [ɠ͡ǂ] and uvular [ʛ͡ǂ] are
not only possible but velar implosive clicks easier to produced than modally voiced clicks.
However, they are not attested in any language. [7]

Percussive consonants::
Consonants may be pronounced without any airstream mechanism. These
are percussive consonants, where the sound is generated by one organ striking another.
Percussive consonants are not phonemic in any known language, though the extensions
to the IPA for disordered speech provide symbols for a bilabial percussive [ʬ] (smacking
lips) and a bidental percussive [ʭ] (gnashing teeth). The only percussive known to be
used in nondisordered speech is a sublingual percussive [¡] (a tongue slap) that appears
allophonically in the release of alveolar clicks in the Sandawe language of Tanzania.
Percussive consonants
Sublingua
Bilabial Bidental
l
ʬ ʭ ¡
THE END OF ASSINGMENT.