The place of articulation is another way to observe how sounds are articulated. When describing the place of articulation, we usually consider is the place within the vocal tract where the articulators form a stricture.
Vowels
Vowels are made by egressive pulmonic airflow through vibrating or constricted vocal folds and through the vocal tract, and the sound is modified in the oral cavity. However, vowels are more difficult than consonants to describe articulatorily. The primary criteria for the classification of vowels are: (1) the distance between the top of the tongue and the roof of the mouth and (2) the retraction and extension of the tongue. A secondary criterion is the rounding of the lips.
The distance between the top of the tongue and the roof of the mouth is defined in terms of the relative degrees of openness of the oral cavity. Openness corresponds to jaw opening, as well as to the relative height of the tongue. Thus, we have close vowels, open vowels, low vowels and high vowels.
Phoneticians try to transcribe as accurately as possible, i.e. by recording all the articulatory details that exist in speech. Since the sixteenth century, efforts have been made to devise a universal system for transcribing the speech sounds. The best-known system, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), has been developing since 1888.
Phonology
Phonology is the study of the sound patterns in human language.
Each word differs from the other words in both form and meaning.
Each lexical entry includes, along with information about the semantic and syntactic nature of the morpheme, an underlying representation. The underlying representation contains that information about the pronunciation of a morpheme that is not predictable on the basis of general rules. The segments of an underlying representation are called phonemes.
