The reading from Gussenhoven, which outlined the different vocal tract mechanism that go into human speech production had me wondering at a couple of things. First, there’s a lot going on, or a lot of different mechanisms such as the lungs and larynx, the vocal tract consisting of the pharynx the mouth and the nasal cavity, that allow us to produce all the variations of speech that give rise to different words. It’ a complex system and when you compare it to the simplicity of digital speaker, which consists of only a magnetic coil and a second magnet attached to some sort of membrane, it seems even more complex. The comparison makes me wonder why our vocal system is complex when sound vibrations appear to convey the intricate differences of between the worlds many words just fine. And if there is a loss in quality when moving to the simpler system of a speaker I wonder where the loss in quality is and why it doesn’t impair our speech perception to a greater degree.
When Kenstowicz gives the representations of tents as [t^hΣns] and tends as [t^hΣ:nz] it makes wonder why the english alphabet doesn’t actually represent the difference between “tents” and “tends” with a “ns” vs a “nz”, which are presumably the sounds we are distinguishing between. When we claim there’s a difference between the words “tents” and “tends” it is not because we perceive there to be “t” and “d” sounds between the “n” and “s” where in fact there are no such sounds. We are actually perceiving a difference in the the two “s” sounds and the reason we represent these distinctions in the english language is with a “ds” vs. “ts” instead of a two different versions of an “s” is puzzling to me. But surely the spoken form of all these words came first, no? So someone had to make the decision that when a “z” sound follows an “n” it should be represented by a ‘ds”, no? Which doesn’t seem totally problematic to me. And then, as for learning that rule, it doesn’t seem like such a big mystery to me of how we do it despite not being explicitly taught. We just learn them from statistical observation. We unconsciously notice how everyone else pronounces the difference and adopt it. Is there something missing to this explanation that could tell me why Kenstowicz says it’s a mystery?
I really like your point on how speakers, mechanical sound vibrations, appear to be able to emit any sound - with any frequency and variation. It would be strange to play a song and have your speakers play it with an "accent" because it doesn't have the same complexity as our vocal system. Perhaps the complexity is just a result that most of those organs also have the utility of breathing and eating, but the article really does make our ability to make various sounds seem incredibly, and needlessly, complex when compared to speakers.
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