LING 2400 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: English Americans, Lexical Set, Syllable
29 Jun 2018
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PHONETICS CHAPTER 4: ENGLISH VOWELS
TRANSCRIPTION AND PHONETIC DICTIONARIES
-Vowels of English can be transcribed in many different ways because of accents
-length mark [:]
VOWEL QUALITY
-It is possible to make a vowel that is halfway between a high vowel and a mid vowel (not
possible for consonants)
-Vowel sounds form a continuum
-Say [æ] as in had and then move gradually to [i] as in he, should pass through sounds
like [ɛ] as in head and [eI] as in hay
-A range of vowel qualities that have not been discussed so far in this section
-Images IPA vowel symbols are places on the tongue,
the vocal tract airway is shaded dark
-The vowel height difference is clear. Vocal tract airway
between the front of the tongue and the hard palate is
very small [i] while the airway is quite expanded in [a]
-The tongue is retracted in the mouth in the back
vowels [u] and [ʊ]
-Problems with vowels we don't show [eI] and [oʊ]
generally have higher tongue positions that [I] and [ʊ]
-Articulatory differences between [a], [ɑ], [ɒ] are quite
subtle, but the auditory difference are substantial
-No absolute descriptions of the position of the body of
the tongue
- Problem in describing vowels, no distinct boundaries
between one type of vowel and another
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THE AUDITORY VOWEL SPACE
-When you move from one vowel to another, you are changing the auditory qualities of the
vowel
-By moving tongue and lips
-Four vowels [i,ɑ,æ,u]
-[æ] had, you lower your tongue or open your jaw slightly farther, you will produce a vowel
that sounds relatively farther from [i] as in heed
-It is tradition to use terms high, low, back, front even if we are not describing tongue
position
AMERICAN AND BRITISH VOWELS
-[i] heed is a high front, meaning roughly that
the tongue is high and in the front of the mouth
-[æ] had is low position (low front)
-[ɛ] head sounds somewhere between [i] and
[æ] called mid-low front
-Vowel [ɑ] father has a tongue that is low and
back in the mouth (low back)
-[u] who is a high, fairly back vowel
-British English spoken solid points represent the vowel
that we are treating as monophthong, and the lines
represent the movements involved in the diphthong
-Positions of both monophthongs and diphthongs aren't
just the results of auditory impressions
-Find that in most accents, the majority of the
relationships are the same
-Some Eastern American speakers make a distinct
diphthong in heed so that their [i] is really a glide
starting from almost the same vowel as hid
-North of England make a lower and more back vowel in
had, making it sound a little more like a [ɑ] in father
-American speakers don't distinguish [ɑ] and [ɔ] (cot and
caught)
- British has an additional vowel [ɒ] is more back and
slightly more rounded than [ɑ]
3
AMERICAN AND BRITISH VOWELS EXAMPLE CONTINUED
-Diphthong [aI] high, buy, moves towards a high front vowel most English, not much beyond
a mid-front vowel
-Word buy, making it end with [ɛ] as in bed, a diphthong of this kind probably has a smaller
change in quality than occurs in your normal pronunciation
- [ aʊ] how starts with a quality very similar to that at the beginning of high
- Diphthong [eI] hay, varies considerably in different forms of English
-American have a diphthong starting with a vowel like [ɛ] in head
-Most BBC have a smaller diphthong closer to [I] as in hid
-Diphthong [oʊ] hoe regarded as back counterpart of [eI]
-BBC Mid-low central vowel [ʌ] as in bud while in America
English the vowel bud is [ə]
DIPHTHONGS
-Each of these sounds involves a change in quality with
the one vowel
-Can be described as movements from one vowel quality
to another
-In English the first part of the diphthong is more
prominent than the last (last part is often to brief, difficult
to determine)
-Diphthongs often don't begin and end with any sounds
that occur in simple vowels
-Diphthong can be indicated by writing the “nonsyllabic”
diacritic symbol under the less prominent portion, as in
[aI ̯
] OR [aˈ] superscript letter I
-[aI, aʊ] high, how; same low central vowel position,
midway between [æ] and [ɑ] BBC closer to [ʌ]
-[ɑ] in father and then say the word eye as if it began with
this sound sounds New York or cockney English
Document Summary
Vowels of english can be transcribed in many different ways because of accents. Images ipa vowel symbols are places on the tongue, the vocal tract airway is shaded dark. Vocal tract airway between the front of the tongue and the hard palate is very small [i] while the airway is quite expanded in [a] The tongue is retracted in the mouth in the back vowels [u] and [ ] Problems with vowels we don"t show [ei] and [o ] generally have higher tongue positions that [i] and [ ] Articulatory differences between [a], [ ], [ ] are quite subtle, but the auditory difference are substantial. No absolute descriptions of the position of the body of the tongue. Problem in describing vowels, no distinct boundaries between one type of vowel and another. It is possible to make a vowel that is halfway between a high vowel and a mid vowel (not possible for consonants)
