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Airstream Mechanism

Speech sounds are produced by using an air-stream.
Air-stream refers to the movement of air as it is pushed at
the lungs during speech production. 

THE AIRSTREAM Mechanism 

The Airstream mechanism is needed to produce speech sounds and the most sounds in the language of the world are produced with a pulmonic eggressive Airstream. When we breath out air from the lungs,various organs in the vocal  tract control or modify the AIRSTREAM to convert into speech sounds. The Airstream passes through trachea or windpipe and larynx or voicebox. The air is converted in to sound  in the larynx which is also known as Adam's apple. The larynx consists of a pair of muscular fold called vocal cords. The vocal cords are placed horizontally from front to back. The space between the two vocal cords is called Glottis. The vocal cords can be opened and closed because they are attached in front and can be seperated at the back.when the vocal cords are held apart voiceless sounds are produced.for example: 'ssss'.

           When the vocal cords are held closely/ together,voiced sounds are produced for example: ' zzzzz' 

The air-stream starts from
the lungs, passes through the larynx and the mouth.Hence
there are three main air-stream mechanisms. They are the
pulmonic, the glottalic and the velaric.

2. Pulmonic air-stream: The air-stream starts from the
lungs. If the air is pushed out from the lungs, it is called
egressive and if the air is drawn in, it is called ingressive. All
the sounds in the English language use pulmonic, egressive
air-stream.

3. Glottalic air-stream: The glottis acts as the initiator and
the air moves in and out of the pharynx. [The vocal cords can
also be opened and closed.]

4. Velaric air-stream:in the case of velaric air-stream, the
back of the tongue is the initiator and the air in the mouth is set
in motion

5. The glottalic and the velanic air-streams are not used mostly in English language.

 There are three types of air stream mechanism and they are, 

      In pulmonic Airstream mechanism a pair of lungs acts as the  initiator the air is pused at the lungs , the air is convented into sounds in the voice box.

           There are two types of pulmonic Airstream mechanism and there are,

        1.pulmonic eggressive Airstream mechanism

        2.pulmonic ingressive Airstream mechanism

In pulmonic eggressive Airstream mechanism,air is pushed out and in pulmonic ingressive Airstream mechanism, the air is pulled in when we speak .

Most of the languages in the world use pulmonic eggressive Airstream mechanism 

Ex English

VELARIC AIRSTREAM MECHANISM

    in velaric Airstream mechanism the velum act as the initiator.

    The sound is produced by closing the vocal cords tract at two places of articulation glottalic 

    In glottalic Airstream mechanism ' Glottis act as initiator.

    Glottalic ingressives are called implosives.