University of Rwanda-Huye Campus

Names: MUREKATE Brigitte

Reg/N0: 222006536
Level 1 Arts & Publishing
On 21/12/2022

GENERAL LINGUISTIC ASSIGNMENT

SAMMARY ABOUT GLOTTALIC AND VELARIC AIRSTREAM MECHANISM

Airstream mechanism is the term we use to describe the means by which air is moved or into the
vocal tract. As linguistic or in every spoken language uses mechanism. There are two important
of useful mechanism as linguistic defined it. Those are velaric airstream and glottalic airstream.
About velaric airstream mechanism initiated two closures in the vocal tract. One of these is the
back of tongue against the velum and the other closures usually the front of tongue.
There are different between these two closure where there is cavity filled with air and this cavity
can be expanded, so that when the forward closure is released air flows into the vocal
tract .According to velaric airstream it shows how sounds are treated or how are use where by
while keeping [k] closure make dental closure as well with tongue against the back of upper teeth
and you make to make sure that the sides of the tongue are firmly against the upper teeth. While
holding these closures you could be able to breathe in and out this shows that the velum is
lowered and that the velaric airstream is independent of pulmonic airstream.
About velar while holding the two closure tense your tongue and pull it down wards without
releasing either of the closures. After this you will probable able to feel the pressure on your
tongue, As if it is being sacked. After this process he have to release the front closure but retain
the velar closure. Now what happen now is air rushes in to the cavity and noises is made. This
will familiary sound because it is clicks.
While learning to produce clicks in phonetics classes you may have commonly allow the tongue
to prop down on the flow of the mouth, this will produce sound known as a percussive which
means sounds made when two articulatory strike but there is no airstream necessarily
involved in producing the noise .clicks English defined as a stop made with an aggressive velaric
airstream and also the word clicks occur in words in several African languages.
The glottalic airstream mechanism relies on air being moved of vocal tract by raising the larynx
while the glottis is closed while there is a glottal constriction larynx can bob up and down
bobbing the larynx upwards increase air pressure and forces air out. Sounds made this way are
called ejectives we will just consider ejectives here and not worry about impossible. Some
example of ejectives from a narrative by a woman from Aberdeen in her early twenties there are
two ejectives that are turn-finally and other in the middle of a turn.
To sum up this chapter consist velaric and glottalic airstream mechanism that are not typically
and not are part of phonemic inventory of English. We have seen deal of phonetic diversity for
sounds which intuitively we think of as the same.