Week 2 Flashcards
What is a vowel?
-The core of a syllable
A _________ is produced with an open, unobstructed oral cavity; air passes freely through the vocal tract.
Vowel
Where is the sound source of vowels?
Glottis
What are the vocal folds doing when producing a vowel?
Vibrating
Most famous phonetician
Peter Ladefoged
when there is no distinct boundaries between one vowel and another
Vowel Articulation
- Height
- Backness
- Rounding
- Tense/Lax
4 Vowel Dimensions
Where is the tongue in vowel production?
- Height
2. Backness
Rounded/unrounded
What are the lips doing?
Refers to how high the tongue is in the oral cavity.
Height
Refers to where the main constriction is.
Backness
Where is constriction in the front vowels?
Near the Palate
Where is constriction in the back vowels?
Near the velum/soft palate
How is height defined?
- Plus or minus high
- Plus or minus low
How is backness defined?
Plus or minus back
All front vowels are ___________.
Round
What is the vowel sounding like?
Vowel quality
Can occur in both open and closed syllables.
Tense Vowels
no consonant at the end
Open Syllables
can only occur in closed syllables
Lax Vowels
End in a consonant
Closed Syllables
- High front unrounded tense vowel
- Produced by tongue body raised near the hard palate
- Considered one of the point vowels
/i/ (eeeeeee)
- Corner vowel
- Occupies a corner of the vowel quadrilateral
Point Vowel
What sound does /i/ make?
(eeeeeee)
- High front unrounded lax vowel
- Produced by tongue body slightly lower than /i/
- Referred to as small cap I
/I/ (ihhh)
What sound does I make?
(ihhhhhh)
- Mid front unrounded tense vowel
- Tongue body lower than for [i] and [I]
- Other possible transcriptions [e], [ei], [ej]
[e] (aaaa)
When stressed which vowel of [e] do we use?
[ei]
When unstressed which vowel of [e] do we use?
[e]
- Mid front unrounded lax vowel
- Tongue body slightly lower than for [e]
- Referred to as epsilon
- Generally transcribed before “r” in worlds like “hair” “air”
[ɛ] (ehhhhhhh)
What sound does [e] make?
(aaaaaa)
What sound does [ɛ} make?
(eeeehhhh)
- Low front unrounded lax vowel
- One of the point vowels
- Referred to as ash
- Before velar nasal “ng” some dialects have considerable raising to something closer to [e]
- In some dialects this vowel is used before “r” when it is intervocalic as in “Harry,” “Marry”
[æ]
- High back rounded tense vowel
- One of the point vowels
- Often occurs in combination with the glide /j/, making a sound combination “you” as in “beauty” and “cute”
[u] (ooooo)
What sound does [æ] make?
(a)
What sound does [u] make?
(oooooo)
- High back rounded lax vowel
- Tongue slightly lower than for (u)
- Referred to as upsilon
[ʊ] (uhhhhh)
- (High)-mid back rounded tense vowel
- Tongue body lower than for [u] and [ʊ]
[o], [oʊ] (ohh)
What sound does [ʊ] make?
(uhhhhh)
- Common in transcription to use open-o before r
- Varies by dialect
[ɔ] (aww)
What sound does [ɔ] make?
(awww)
- Low back unrounded vowel
- One of the point vowels
[a] (ahh)
What sound does [a] make?
(ahhhh)
- Front
- Mid
- Low
Height
- Front
2. Back
Backness
Height for front vowels
- [i]
- [I]
- [ɛ]
- [æ]
Height for back vowels
- [u]
- [ʊ]
- [a]
