Language / - a 5-dimensional model applied to some basic data in linguistics
 The Speech Organs

Dimensional views
with application of the 5-dimensional model on this site:

As written in the introduction file:
   If an interpretation of biological design in accordance with principles in the dimension model have some validity, it should reasonably also be the case for organs of speech - and consequently for the phonemes too. It would provide a basis for interpreting phonemes - the individual sounds - in an equivalent manner.
   Figure of the dimension chain from physics here:

General complementary "poles" in production of speech is
- the dorsal - ventral opposition, (back - front, upper - lower) related animal - vegetative poles in the embryonic development,
- air current - biological organs.

A general principle is the different polarizations as divisions of the air stream by the organs, barriers and demarcations of different structures.
   (Fundamentally it's the organs that here represent the polarizing forces, the 00-pole, in relation to the air stream as the integrating 0-pole - in terms of our model.)

Sketch of speech organs as a dimensional chain, from inside - out:

  • Tongue / Oral cavity illustrates in the design the complementary poles 3b/3a of d-degree 3, Mass /Space in a simple way,
  • Jaws, upper/lower, curved (the dental ridges) forms as demarcations of the cavity, a surface on this macroscale, d-degree 2.
  • Teeth illustrate d-degree 1 on this scale.. Built-in into the jaws, as in the dimension model we have the outer poles 2a/2b of d-degree 1,
    depicted: 2a — 1 —2b.
  • Lips, finally, opening / closing, representing a first main expression for motions to and fro.

More detailed aspects and motivations below.

Lungs - windpipe with vocal cords - throat (pharynx):
The way from lungs to mouth and nose openings in ordinary breathing may be regarded a a whole dimension chain from centre to anticentre (c - ac), double directed in the process on convergence - divergence in inhalation/exhalation.
   (In fact, it also represents motions to and fro, as in our model d-degree 0/00, equivalent with 5', starting point for a new dimension chain and also implying a pole exchange.)
   Medium of speech, the air, comes from the lungs and is designed in the later steps on its way out, mainly during exhalation (click sounds disregarded).
   The windpipe (trachea) is the "stalk" toward and from the lungs as centres. (It should possibly be regarded as representing an underlying level.)

[Cf. the hypothetical aspect of atomic breathing of empty space (Physics II), atomic centres in communication with the surrounding "vacant space" as "antimatter".]

Primarily, the "field level", that is d-degree 4 as double-direction inwards/outwards, is represented by the duct system of the airways between the interior and the surroundings and the air flow as a process in / out.
   (Air and food ways for oxygen and food represent the potentials between poles 0 / 00, giving the combustion energy in the chain of chemical processes.)

Vocal cords:
The larynx is a complex structure with vocal cords as "radial" within more or less circular "cricoid" and "thyroid" cartilages, as a "complex centre" in our model.
   The vocal cords as first barrier for production of speech, from inside - out, is here proposed to represent d-degree 4 of forces, a field level: open slit, a 00-pole defined, representing barriers in inward direction (voiceless sounds); "closed", narrow slit, defining a 0-pole, the first "barrier" from inside out.

  • The air stream is here still undivided, goes both to nasal and oral cavities.
  • The coordinate axis, the direction, is the one ventral <==> dorsal: representing the main axis vegetative - animal pole (0 - 00) of an embryo.
  • The opening/closing, divergence/convergence are designed through opposite, muscle drawing forces. See the figure below.
  • The vibration of the vocal cords should be compared with the 1-dimensional vibration motions assumed in d-degree 4 in our model.

Figure to the left freely after (WN). Right figure just a way to illustrate the principle.

Muscle pull in dorsal direction = outwards / upwards (the 00-pole) —> glottis opens. Muscles pull in ventral direction inwards / downwards (the 0-pole), — > glottis closes

Hence, motion inwards defines glottis as blocking (a barrier), as a centre, ~ 0-pole, motion outwards defines it as open, as anticenter, ~ 00-pole, in accordance with the description of last step in the dimension model: motions towards each other defining a new 0-pole, a centre, motions from each other a new 00-pole, an anticentre. (A "pole exchange" in last degree 0/00.)

One might wonder if not a simpler arrangement of the muscles could have given the same function, if there isn't laws of a deeper geometry that led to this lever principle around centre displaced axes of rotation.

About vibration:
According to the reference, the character of vibration of the vocal cords in voiced phonemes may not be the change between parallel cords to a V-opening as in speech versus breathing. The vibration is perhaps instead produced only through changes in the elasticity of the vocal cords. Some photos (CEL) could be interpreted in that way. According to this source, one don't know really (or didn't at that time) how vibration in voiced sounds comes about. The latter alternative would mean more of a linear change (as in L-waves), more like assumed motional moment in d-degree 4, in a double-directed "vector field", representing an underlying chemically governed level as of higher d-degree.

Soft palate (velum) with uvula and step 4 → 3:
In the pharynx the airway gets branched, pharynx <——> nasal cavities and pharynx <———> oral cavity, as two angled coordinate axes in dimension step 4→3: a polarization into different directions ventrally / dorsally:

Dorsal - Ventral:
As said above, the dorsal side derives from the animal pole of an embryo, the ventral side from the "vegetative pole" in a simplified description.
   The opposition ventral - dorsal as medical concepts for front and back has the character of 0- and 00-poles (see later files about Biology), of internal / external (centre versus anticentre), and of lower / upper.
   In many respects, one finds a further polarization dorsally - as lower dimensional degrees in relation to higher have the character of 00-poles in relation to the 0-pole:
                                                       

- The nasal cavity is dual versus the single mouth opening.
- Upper (dorsal) jaws are often less grown together than the lower (ventral) jaw.
- Upper lip has a cleaved wave form versus the simple curve of lower lip.
- (Paired senses such as eyes and ears more dorsally and "laterally" (= on the sides) versus senses as taste, unpaired),
- Vocal cords open during breathing in a V shape (divergence) outwards, in direction backwards towards the spine, i.e. towards the dorsal side.

Soft palate (velum) forms a boundary between oral cavity and pharynx. In its direction from the upper, inner palate ceiling (dorsal, ~ 00-pole) in direction inwards (with uvula downwards), it can be seen as a biological design of the inward direction (pole 4a).
   It has the function of closing the airway towards the nasal cavities through a certain angle change in direction inwards. It implies a polarization of the air stream from pharynx to nose / mouth to the single direction towards the oral cavity. Cf. that inward direction from 00-pole is assumed as a polarizing force in the dimensional model.

The change in direction of the soft palate with uvula from more or less vertical (hanging down) to lifted more horizontally inwards can also be interpreted as an expression of the angle step assumed in the model from 180° to 90° of polarity.

[Something of a counterpart to the dorsal soft palate is the epiglottis from ventral direction (the 0-pole). It is apparently united by muscles with the tongue. It closes the windpipe at swallowing (a sort of unidirection inwards the body). This occurs however more through raise of the larynx than by a direct change of epiglottis. The raising gives side passages, implying a more radial closure. Hence, both velum / uvula and epiglottis, interpreted as at the border to "d-degree 3" (the oral cavity), could be perceived as designing the primary hypothesis in our model of lower d-degree acting polarizing on higher d-degree: here the canals for airway to nose / mouth (velum) and food / air (epiglottis). It's simultaneously expressed in different geometries as from a- and b-poles in our model, derived from 00- and 0-poles respectively.]


Oral cavity - Tongue, step 3 - 2:

After soft palate and uvula, the airway widens to the oral cavity with the tongue:
   Oral cavity - tongue becomes a design of poles of d-degree 3, a relation Space - Mass in terms of physical quantities, interpreted in their mutual relationship (see Physics).
   Tongue - Hard Palate becomes also geometrically a relation radial (pole 3b) versus "circular" (pole 3a), the elementary geometrical forms assumed in d-degree step 3-2 in the model. The hard palate ceiling (dorsal ~ from 00-pole) gets the circular geometry (pole 3a), the tongue (ventral ~ from 0-pole) represent roughly in this relation the radial form (pole 3b).

The tongue, from the bottom of the oral cavity (the ventral side, ~0-pole)), has muscle fibres in 3 perpendicular directions, in this obviously a 3-dimensional structure.
   It's also penetrated by muscle fibres from the inner tongue-bone at pharynx, from the skull base and from outer, lower jaw. We could suspect that these extra muscles represents the outer poles 4b and 4a of d-degree 3:
(4b —>3 <—4a), the double-direction in the dimension chain outwards/inwards on the level of muscles, giving tongue an extra mobility.

It could be noted how biologists describe the tongue as "angled outwards relative the tongue body". It implies that the tongue - as primarily radial in design from d-degree 4, also in its further design illustrates an angle step, to next, lower d-degree.

The palate is soft inwards, 1/3 of it, while 2/3 outwards are hard through bone in the tissue (at a tissue level a shift towards lower d-degrees).

Tongue - Palate, from velum to dental ridge, can thus be seen as designed after geometries in d-degree step 3 <==>2.

Tongue forms:
In its shape the tongue changes form at speech, depicting dimensionally the steps 3-2-1:
- It can contract to the form of 3-dimensional "spherical" blob.
- It may take the form of a flat "2-dimensional" surface, as "whole broadened', a "tongue blade" - and get more bowl- or dish-shaped, "convex" / "concave" à la poles of d-degree 2.
- It may taper to "1-dimensional" with a tip as in a front l-sound - or vibrate in an apical r-sound, illustrating the "d-degree of motions 0/00", cf. vibration of the vocal cords.


Dental ridge - teeth, step 2 - 1:
The jaws with dental ridge and teeth encloses and mark off the oral cavity. They illustrate at the same time a "polarization" of the mouth as circular structure - in upper/lower cavity. In these senses, they correspond to the d-degree step 2-1, where the teeth get the role of d-degree 1 - a breakdown into separate units.

(32 = 25 in humans - the number that according to previous hypotheses correspond to a dimension chain from the polarizing pole 00 inwards. )

Teeth are said to originate from skin carapace in the history of evolution, later becoming scales, on sharks for instance, later immigrating into teeth.
(Compare jaws-teeth as demarcations, with the forms of lipids in demarcating cell membranes |_|_|.)


Lips - 0/00:
The surface cell layers of the lips may be described as a meeting between the two poles, between epidermis ("ectoderm") from the animal pole and mucous membranes ("endoderm") in the digestive system from the vegetative pole, which on the embryonic level implies a meeting between farthest out and farthest in, 00- and 0-poles.
   Lips consist of striated muscle tissue (from mesoderm, the embryonic tissue layer developed between the outer and the inner, ectoderm and endoderm).
   From these aspects, they could be viewed as d-degree 0 / 00 relative to other parts of the speech organs. Perhaps also from the point of view of mobility: the mobility of lips is the first developed by babies - essential for sucking - and for first sound generation.)


Two gradients:
The apparatus for articulation should perhaps be described as two opposite gradients:
   a) all the cavities, rooms for resonances and air currents,
   b) the organ-building biological matter.
This gives a polarity of the type of matter - antimatter, or Space versus Mass in similarity with the one between tongue and palate, but on a more general level.
   For language however, it's the "matter" which becomes anticentra, in this sense "antimatter", while the air currents in the cavities constitute the "matter". The speech is the interaction between them.

Two organ levels?
If the root of the tongue, as mentioned above, has muscles both from inside the tongue-bone (attached with ligaments to the thyroid cartilage of larynx) and from outside the lower jaw, it gives one reason for interpreting the speech apparatus in accordance with the loop version of the dimension model, type 5→0/00, 5→4/1, 5→3/2:

The tongue could be regarded as "stored into" step 3 - 2, as an organ level II compared with the one defined by the coordinate axis from pharynx with vocal cords to dental ridge, teeth and lips as an organ level I?
   The tongue could thus be interpreted as something like a radial vector field at the new level. Compare the tongue directions inwards - outwards, upwards - downwards and its many shapes and position changes for different consonants and vowels.
   Lip-sounds as plosives - the ones at organ level I - belong to children's first consonants.

A biologically very suspect note:
Mouth as an "angle rest":
   According to the aspect on a dimension chain as angle steps, the apparatus of speech becomes as a whole with mouth and throat, an "angle rest" - the resulting angle after for instance 5 halvings from 360°. (Like the open vocal cords when breathing further in.)

It is noteworthy then that the mouth gap opens along another coordinate axis than the vocal cords, as along the x-axis relative the y-axis.

*

To Phonemes


© Åsa Wohlin
Free to distribute if the source is mentioned.
Texts are mostly extractions from a booklet series, made publicly available in year 2000

 

 

 

 

 

 


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