Practice question · True or false
Clicks occur only as paralinguistic noises and never as ordinary consonants in a language.
Hints
- Consider the consonant inventories of southern African languages.
- Several languages use a whole series of clicks as regular consonants.
Show the answer
False
Why
False. Several southern African languages use series of clicks as ordinary consonants in everyday words. English uses one paralinguistically to express disapproval, which is a fact about English rather than about clicks.
Practise How Speech Is Produced
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Languages I is free to start.
More questions on How Speech Is Produced
- Why does lowering the velum during a bilabial closure change /b/ into /m/?
- Pitch depends on the rate of vocal fold vibration, whereas resonance depends on the shape of the vocal tract.…
- Voicing can switch on and off within a single consonant.
- Sort each articulator by whether it is ACTIVE or PASSIVE.
- Approximately how long is the vocal tract of an adult male, in centimetres?
- Complete the account of speech production.
- Which follow from the fact that speakers produce ten to fifteen sounds per second?
- Match each structure to the contrast it controls.