Vowels

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Vowels

• Vowels are the most sonorant (or intense) and the
  most audible sounds in speech.
• They usually function as the nucleus (or core) of
  a syllable.
• The consonants that surround vowels often depend
  on them for their audibility.

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Vowels

• Take the word pop for example.
• The ps are heard mainly because of the way
  they affect the beginning and end of the vowel
  sound.

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Vowels

• Ask someone to describe where the tongue is at
  the beginning of a consonant and you will get a
  concrete answer.
• Ask someone to describe where their tongue is at
  the beginning of a vowel, and you will get a
  variety of responses.
• It is much more difficult to give a satisfactory
  articulatory description of vowels.

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Vowels

• Vowels are sounds produced with a relatively open
  vocal tract, so they do not have a consonant-like
  point of articulation or manner of articulation.
• Instead, the vocal tract above the glottis acts
  as a resonator affecting the sound made by the
  vocal folds.

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Vowels

• The shape of this resonator determines the
  quality of the vowel.
• Since vowels are so very different from
  consonants, we have to use different features
  than those used to describe consonants.

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Vowels

• There are several ways in which speakers can
  change the shape of the vocal tract, and thus
  change vowel quality.
• Using a new feature system, we can create a chart
  to describe vowels.

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Vowels

• Lets begin by constructing a basic
  representation of the mouth.
• You should keep in mind, however, that this
  (unlike the representation of the articulators
  involved in producing consonants) is only an
  abstract representation of the mouth.

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Vowels

• A representation of this abstract mouth can be
  found on the inside cover of your textbook
• Be aware, however, that we will have to modify
  this representation somewhat to fully use our new
  feature system

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Vowels

• Tongue Height
• If you repeat to yourself the vowel sounds in
  seat, set, sat, you will find that you open your
  mouth a little wider as you change from each
  sound.
• These varying degrees of openness correspond to
  different degrees of tongue height high, mid,
  low.

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Vowels

• High vowels are made with the front of the mouth
  less open because the tongue body is raised, or
  high.
• Mid vowels are produced with an intermediate
  tongue height.
• Low vowels are pronounced with the front of the
  mouth open and the tongue lowered.

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Vowels

• Tongue Advancement
• Besides being held high or mid or low, the tongue
  can also be pushed forward or pulled back within
  the oral cavity.
• For example, in beat, the body of the tongue is
  raised and pushed forward so it is just under the
  hard palate.

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Vowels

• In boot, however, the body of the tongue is in
  the back of the mouth, toward the velum.
• The tongue is advanced or pushed forward for all
  the front vowels, and retracted or pulled back
  for the back vowels.

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Vowels

• Lip Rounding
• Vowel quality also depends on lip position. When
  you say two, your lips are rounded.
• For tea, however, they are unrounded.

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Vowels

• To make our chart complete, however, we are going
  to have to add in one more set of features
• Tense vs. Lax
• Vowels that are called tense are produced with an
  extra degree of muscular effort.
• Lax vowels lack this extra effort.

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Vowels

• For example, tense front vowels are made with a
  stronger (i.e., longer and more extreme) tongue
  fronting gesture than lax front vowels, which are
  produced with a weaker fronting movement.
• Tense rounded vowels are also made with stronger
  or tighter lip rounding than their lax
  counterparts.

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Vowels

• Charting Vowels
• Starting from the upper left corner again, the
  first vowel that we encounter, a front, high,
  tense, unrounded vowel, is represented by the
  symbol i
• This is the sound in the word beat.

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Vowels

• Next is a front, high, unrounded, lax vowel,
  represented by the symbol called a small capital
  I
• This is the sound in the word bit.
• Here is what it looks like

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Vowels

• Moving downward, we next encounter a front, mid,
  unrounded, tense vowel, represented by the symbol
  e
• This is the sound in the word bait.

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Vowels

• Next is a front, mid, unrounded, lax vowel,
  represented by the symbol called epsilon
• This is the sound in the word bet.
• Here is what it looks like

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Vowels

• Moving down again, we next encounter a front,
  low, unrounded, lax vowel, represented by the
  symbol called ash.
• This is the sound in the word bat.

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Vowels

• Moving to the upper right corner of our abstract
  mouth, we next encounter a high, back, tense,
  rounded vowel, represented by the symbol u
• This is the sound in the word boot.

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Vowels

• Next is a high, back, lax, rounded vowel,
  represented by the symbol called upsilon
• This is the sound in the word foot.
• Here is what it looks like

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Vowels

• Moving downward, we next encounter a back, mid,
  tense, rounded vowel, represented by the symbol
  o
• This is the sound in the word boat.

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Vowels

• Next is a back, mid, lax, rounded vowel,
  represented by the symbol called open o (or
  sometimes backward c)
• This is the sound in the word long (at least for
  me!!!).
• Or maybe the first sound in aw shucks
• Here is what it looks like

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Vowels

• Moving downward, we next encounter a back, low,
  lax, unrounded vowel, represented by the symbol
  a.
• This is the sound in the word father.

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Vowels

• Finally, moving to the middle of our abstract
  mouth, we encounter a central, mid, lax,
  unrounded vowel, represented by the symbol called
  a schwa
• This is the last sound in the word sofa.
• Here is what it looks like

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Vowels

• Schwa has a stressed counterpart known as
  inverted v or wedge
• This is the vowel sound in the words but and
  putt.
• It looks like this

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Vowels

• Diphthongs
• At this point, we still have not described the
  vowel sounds of some English words (in many
  English dialects) such as hide, loud, and coin.
• These words contain diphthongs or two-part vowel
  sounds in the same syllable.

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Vowels

• If (most of) you say eye slowly, concentrating on
  how you make this vowel, you should find that
  your tongue starts out in the position for a
  and moves toward the position for the vowel i
  or the corresponding palatal glide y.

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Vowels

• This diphthong, which consists of two
  articulations and the two corresponding sounds,
  is written with two symbols in IG as aj as in
  hajd hide (or as ai in the IPA and ay and
  a? in various places elsewhere).

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Vowels

• To make the vowel of loud, the tongue and the
  lips start in position for a and move toward
  the position for u or w, so this diphthong is
  written aw, as in lawd loud (or as au in
  the IPA and a? elsewhere).

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Vowels

• In the vowel of coin, the movement is from the
  open o position toward the position for i or
  y, so the vowel of coin is written ?j as in
  k?jn (or as ?? in the IPA.
• You may also see oj, o?, oi and oy
  elsewhere.

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Phonetics

• One last symbol you may be familiar with is the
  symbol called right-hook schwa
• In most American transcriptions, this sound is
  transcribed as ?r (schwa r)

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Vowels

• In truth, however, no sound is ever pronounced in
  exactly the same way twice.
• Pronunciation varies among speakers as well.
• Variations in the way that a sound is produced
  are predictable, however.

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Vowels

• A Narrow Transcription, or a transcription that
  shows the fine details of the articulation of
  phones, can be used to record some of the more
  predictable variations in sound.
• Aspirated stops
• Not all voiceless stops are the same.

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Vowels

• Take, for example the words pat and spat.
• Can you feel the puff of air when you say pat?
• This puff of air is called aspiration.

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Vowels

• Aspiration is transcribed as ?, as in p??t
• Aspiration (in English) occurs on all voiceless
  oral (nonglottal) stops occurring as the first
  sound in a stressed syllable.

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Vowels

• To understand this better, contrast the following
  words
• Pat p?? t spat sp?t
• Kid k??d skid sk?d
• Top t?ap stop stap

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Vowels

• Dental Consonants
• Say the word health or unthinkable.
• Consonants which are ordinarily produced with the
  tongue at the alveolar ridge are articulated
  differently when followed by an inter-dental
  consonant theta or eth

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Vowels

• In this environment, they are pronounced with the
  tip of the tongue on the teeth, rather than the
  alveolar ridge.
• Health h?l?? unthinkable ?n????k?bl

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Vowels

• n?

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Vowels

• Velarized l
• Now say the words bowl and lobe.
• In a broad transcription, bowl and lobe are
  represented as containing the same segments only
  the order differs.
• For many speakers, however, the l sounds are
  actually not identical.

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Vowels

• The l in bowl is velarized, (also called
  dark), while the l of lobe is clear. The
  velarized l is transcribed as an l with a bar
  through it
• Feel fil vs. leaf lif
• Pill p?l vs. lip l?p

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Vowels

• l

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Vowels

• Lengthened vowels
• Now say the words peas and peace.
• Vowels in certain phonetic environments are
  longer than the same vowels in other
  environments. In particular, vowels which are
  followed by a voiced consonant are longer in
  duration than those followed by a voiceless
  consonant.

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Vowels

• To transcribe this, use the symbol
• Peas p?iz vs. peace p?is
• Had h?d vs.
• hat h?t

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Vowels

• i

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Vowels

• Nasalized vowels
• Finally, say the words green and greed.
• These words seem identical, but on closer
  inspection, the vowels are different in one
  respect.
• The vowel in green is nasalized, as a result of
  the consonant that follows it.

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Vowels

• In a nasalized vowel, the velum is lowered.
• In green, we lower our velum a little early and
  allow air out of the nasal passage. To
  transcribe this, use the symbol
• Green grin tan t??n
• This sound is contrasting in French beau vs. bõn

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Vowels

• i