506 



HEARING, VOICE AND SPEECH 



4. ELEMENTS OF SPEECH 



Language is made up of words, words of syllables and syllables of ele- 

 mentary sounds called vowels and consonants. Vowels are produced when 

 the voice is modified by merely changing the shape of the resonance cavities 

 pharynx, mouth, and nasal passages; consonants when the air or voice 

 is more or less obstructed by the movable parts of the organs of speech 

 lips, teeth, tongue and palate. 



In whispering the glottis is partially open and the air is allowed to pass 

 through without setting the vocal cords in vibration. Since each of the reso- 

 nance cavities has a sound of its own which it emits when the air contained 

 in it is caused to vibrate, and since sounds may be produced by the lips, tongue, 

 etc., alone, it is possible to speak without voice. 



A. VOWELS 



We cannot here discuss exhaustively the changes of the mouth cavity 

 necessary for the production of vowels. Grlitzner summarized the most im- 

 portant of them as follows : If the voice be sounded with the tongue well down 



in the mouth, and the lips at first 

 but slightly open, the sound of IT 

 (00) is produced. Then while 

 the voice is sounding, if the mouth 

 be opened more and more without 

 changing the position of the tongue 

 the sound of 00 gradually passes 

 into that of and finally into 

 that of broad A, and vice versa. 

 The vowels IT, 0, A, can be uttered 

 therefore merely by changing the 

 size of the mouth opening; in or- 

 dinary speech, however, the tongue 

 and soft palate take part in the 

 changes. If now the sound of 

 broad A be uttered with the mouth 

 moderately open (Fig. 204) and if 

 without changing the size of the 

 opening the tongue be gradually 

 lifted more and more toward the 



hard palate we get successively the sounds of long A and E (Fig. 205) (Ger- 

 man E and I). In this series the space inclosed between the larynx, posterior 

 wall of the pharynx, soft palate and base of the tongue (laryngeal space, 

 Purkinje) gradually becomes larger. 



The other sounds of these same letters are produced by combination of 

 the positions already mentioned for the two series. The larynx and soft 

 palate, however, undergo changes of position also. 



Bonders has shown that the buccal cavity is attuned for the production 

 of the different vowels not at the same pitch, but at different pitches. The 



FIG. 205. Position of the vocal organs in pro- 

 ducing the sound of long E, after Griitzner. 



