vowels Flashcards
criteria for describing vowels
- high/low dimension (vertical axis)
- tongue height – how close the highest point of the tongue is to the roof of the mouth. - front/central/back dimension (horizontal axis)
- extent to which the body of the tongue lies towards the front of the vowel space - lip rounding
- rounded lips enlarge the space within the mouth and diminish the size of the opening
of the mouth
- front vowels tend to be unrounded, and back vowels tend to be rounded
What are cardinal vowels?
language independent reference points based on the highest, lowest, most front and most back points that the tongue can achieve
- not vowels of English or any other language.
- universal system that particular languages “choose from”.
● Attention: IPA symbols standing for cardinal vowels are partly identical to IPA symbols
standing for English vowels. The vowels are not identical, however!
high front unrounded vowel
[ɪ]
mid front unrounded vowel
[e]
low front unrounded vowel
[æ]
high back rounded vowel
[ʊ]
low central unrounded vowel
[ʌ]
low-mid back rounded vowel (absent in GA)
[ɒ]
low back rounded vowel (absent in RP)
[ɑ]
schwa
body of the tongue lies in the most central part of the vowel space, between high-mid and low-mid, between back and front
no lip rounding
shorter than the short vowels
never occurs in a stressed syllable [ə]
high back rounded vowel
[u:] /goose/
high front unrounded vowel
[i:] /see/
low-mid back rounded vowel
[ɔ:] /corn/
low back unrounded vowel
[ɑ:] /father/
open-mid central unrounded
[ɜː] /bird/
monopthong
is a simple, single vowel sound with no movement or change in articulation, unlike diphthongs or triphthongs.
diphthong
change of position of the articulators during its production → change of vowel quality
within a syllable
closing diphthongs
move from a more open to a closed position of the jaw
PRICE vowel [aɪ]
begins low front unrounded and ends in [ɪ]-like quality examples: time, die, cry, dye, high, height
[eɪ] FACE-vowel
begins mid front unrounded and ends in [ɪ]-like quality
for GA-speakers: words like hair: monophthong [e] and [ɹ] examples: ape, waist, day, eight, they, great
[ɔɪ] CHOICE-vowel
begins mid-low back rounded and ends with [ɪ]-like quality
[aʊ] MOUTH-vowel
begins low back unrounded and ends examples: house, cow
[oʊ] GOAT
begins mid back rounded
GA and more conservate RP speakers examples: sew, roe, toad
[əʊ]
more modern RP speakers
examples: so, foe, know. road, though
centring diphthongs
= move towards the center of the vowel space/ the schwa → only in RP
[ɪə] NEAR-vowel
begins high front unrounded examples: hero, here, ear, career, idea
[ʊə] CURE-vowel
begins high back rounded examples: poor, tour, pure, during
[ɛə] SQUARE-vowel
begins front low-mid unrounded examples: care, air, bear, aeroplane
