This book presents a theory of speech-sound generation in the human vocal system. This book presents a theory of speech-sound generation in the human vocal system. The comprehensive acoustic theory serves as one basis for defining categories of speech sounds used to form distinctions between words in languages. The author begins with a review of the anatomy and physiology of speech production, then covers source mechanisms, the vocal tract as an acoustic filter, relevant aspects of auditory psychophysics and physiology, and phonological representations. In the remaining chapters he presents a detailed examination of vowels, consonants, and the influence of context on speech-sound production. Although he focuses mainly on the sounds of English, he touches briefly on sounds in other languages. The book will serve as a reference for speech scientists, speech pathologists, linguists interested in phonetics and phonology, psychologists interested in speech perception and production, and engineers concerned with speech processing applications.

The 32 papers of this volume were selected from 78 papers read at ICHoLS VI, were contributed by linguists from 16 countries of Europe, Asia, and the Americas. They are presented in six sections:1. General Concerns 2. Oriental Linguistics and Related Issues 3. From the Early Middle Ages to the End of the 17th Century 4. On 19th-century European Linguistics 5. On the Verge of Modernity: From the 19th to the 20th Century 6. Contemporary IssuesIndividual topics range from dealing with overriding concerns of linguistic historiography to focusing on specific fields of inquiry within a limited frame and involving a large variety of topical areas. Most of the papers are written in English. The exceptions are one French and two German contributions.