The totality of motor processes involved in planning and execution of sequences of overlapping gestures which result in speech refers to

• A. Phonology
• B. Articulation
• C. Phonetics
• D. Prosody

Answer: (B)

Articulation is the motor planning and execution of the movements of the speech organs—lips, tongue, jaw, velum, and related structures—to produce spoken sounds. It covers how these gestures are sequenced and overlapped (coarticulation) to create fluent speech, linking intended sounds to the physical shaping of the vocal tract.

Phonology deals with the abstract system of sounds and their patterns in a language, not the actual movements used to produce them. Phonetics studies the physical properties of sounds, including how they’re produced and perceived, but not the motor planning of speech in real-time. Prosody focuses on suprasegmental features like intonation, stress, and rhythm across phrases and sentences, rather than the moment-to-moment motor actions of articulation.