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How do the lungs provide the airstream for most speech sounds?

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Diagram of a human head in profile showing the location of vocal organs and possible places of articulation for speech sounds, with labels for lips, teeth, tongue, palate, uvula, pharynx, and vocal cords, and numbered regions corresponding to types of articulation such as bilabial, alveolar, and velar.
phonetics Diagram depicting the location of human vocal organs and possible places of articulation used for speech.

In the context of phonetics, the lungs function as a bellows-like respiratory activator that provides the driving energy for speech in the form of an airstream. This process, known as phonic respiration, involves a deep, rapid inhalation followed by a slow, controlled exhalation that sustains the utterance.1

As air is expelled from the lungs, it travels through the trachea to the larynx. The vocal cords within the larynx act as a valve, converting the moving energy of this breath stream into audible sound through vibration. For voiced sounds, these vibrations create regular pulses of air pressure. These pulses act like sharp taps on the air within the vocal tract, which is then shaped by the pharynx, tongue, and lips to produce distinct speech sounds. The intensity or loudness of these sounds is primarily determined by the pressure of this subglottic airstream and the amplitude of the vocal cord vibrations.21345