LING 330 Lecture 25: LING330 April 4th
Document Summary
Need fixed points for auditory comparison across languages. Because everyone"s vowel space is different, depending on the shape of their vocal tract, etc. Same tongue positions as 1 8 but opposite lip rounding. Cardinal vowels are the basis of the ipa vowel quadrilateral. Provide a framework for vowel comparisons across languages. Cardinal vowels are not the vowels of any language. But vowels belonging to cv categories are found across most languages. Extra symbols for vowels different from cardinal vowels, which are: Each symbol in ipa chart represents vowels in a region of vowel space. Percentages are not important to remember, the big picture is what we need to know. Physiologically, there may be an explanation, but the better explanation is perception. Lip rounding makes your vocal tract (front tube) a little bit longer, and this front tube tends to generate the second formant, and making the tube longer makes the formant lower and brings it farther towards the back sound.
