Vowel
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Legend:unrounded•rounded |
Avowelis asyllabicspeech sound pronounced without any stricture in thevocal tract.[1]Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being theconsonant.Vowels vary in quality, inloudnessand also inquantity (length).They are usuallyvoicedand are closely involved inprosodicvariation such astone,intonationandstress.
The wordvowelcomes from theLatinwordvocalis,meaning "vocal" (i.e. relating to the voice).[2] In English, the wordvowelis commonly used to refer both to vowel sounds and to the written symbols that represent them (⟨a⟩,⟨e⟩,⟨i⟩,⟨o⟩,⟨u⟩,and sometimes⟨w⟩and⟨y⟩).[3]
Definition
[edit]There are two complementary definitions of vowel, onephoneticand the otherphonological.
- In thephoneticdefinition, a vowel is a sound, such as theEnglish"ah"/ɑː/or "oh"/oʊ/,produced with an openvocal tract;it is median (the air escapes along the middle of the tongue), oral (at least some of the airflow must escape through the mouth),frictionlessandcontinuant.[4]There is no significant build-up of air pressure at any point above theglottis.This contrasts withconsonants,such as the English "sh"[ʃ],which have a constriction or closure at some point along the vocal tract.
- In the phonological definition, a vowel is defined assyllabic,the sound that forms thepeak of a syllable.[5]A phonetically equivalent but non-syllabic sound is asemivowel.Inoral languages,phonetic vowels normally form the peak (nucleus) of many or all syllables, whereasconsonantsform theonsetand (in languages that have them)coda.Some languages allow other sounds to form the nucleus of a syllable, such as thesyllabic(i.e., vocalic)lin the English wordtable[ˈtʰeɪ.bl̩](when not considered to have a weak vowel sound:[ˈtʰeɪ.bəl]) or the syllabicrin theSerbo-Croatianwordvrt[ʋr̩̂t]"garden".
The phonetic definition of "vowel" (i.e. a sound produced with no constriction in the vocal tract) does not always match the phonological definition (i.e. a sound that forms the peak of a syllable).[6]Theapproximants[j]and[w]illustrate this: both are without much of a constriction in the vocal tract (so phonetically they seem to be vowel-like), but they occur at the onset of syllables (e.g. in "yet" and "wet" ) which suggests that phonologically they are consonants. A similar debate arises over whether a word likebirdin arhoticdialect has anr-colored vowel/ɝ/or a syllabic consonant/ɹ̩/.The American linguistKenneth Pike(1943) suggested the terms "vocoid"for a phonetic vowel and" vowel "for a phonological vowel,[7]so using this terminology,[j]and[w]are classified as vocoids but not vowels. However, Maddieson and Emmory (1985) demonstrated from a range of languages that semivowels are produced with a narrower constriction of the vocal tract than vowels, and so may be considered consonants on that basis.[8]Nonetheless, the phonetic and phonemic definitions would still conflict for the syllabic /l/ intableor the syllabic nasals inbuttonandrhythm.
Articulation
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Cardinal_vowels-Jones_x-ray.jpg/200px-Cardinal_vowels-Jones_x-ray.jpg)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Vowel_quadrilateral_%28IPA_1949%29.png/220px-Vowel_quadrilateral_%28IPA_1949%29.png)
The traditional view of vowel production, reflected for example in the terminology and presentation of theInternational Phonetic Alphabet,is one ofarticulatory featuresthat determine a vowel'squalityas distinguishing it from other vowels.Daniel Jonesdeveloped thecardinal vowelsystem to describe vowels in terms of the features of tongueheight(vertical dimension), tonguebackness(horizontal dimension) androundedness(lip articulation). These three parameters are indicated in the schematic quadrilateral IPAvowel diagramon the right. There are additional features of vowel quality, such as thevelumposition (nasality), type ofvocal foldvibration (phonation), and tongue root position.
This conception of vowel articulation has been known to be inaccurate since 1928. Peter Ladefoged has said that "early phoneticians... thought they were describing the highest point of the tongue, but they were not. They were actually describing formant frequencies."[9](See below.) The IPAHandbookconcedes that "the vowel quadrilateral must be regarded as an abstraction and not a direct mapping of tongue position."[10]
Nonetheless, the concept that vowel qualities are determined primarily by tongue position and lip rounding continues to be used in pedagogy, as it provides an intuitive explanation of how vowels are distinguished.
Height
[edit]Theoretically, vowel height refers to the vertical position of either the tongue or the jaw (depending on the model) relative to either the roof of the mouth or the aperture of thejaw.In practice, however, it refers to the firstformant(lowest resonance of the voice), abbreviated F1, which is associated with the height of the tongue. Inclose vowels,also known ashigh vowels,such as[i]and[u],the first formant is consistent with the tongue being positioned close to the palate, high in the mouth, whereas inopen vowels,also known aslow vowels,such as[a],F1 is consistent with the jaw being open and the tongue being positioned low in the mouth. Height is defined by the inverse of the F1 value: the higher the frequency of the first formant, the lower (more open) the vowel.[a]InJohn Esling's usage, wherefronted vowelsare distinguished in height by the position of the jaw rather than the tongue, only the terms 'open' and 'close' are used, as 'high' and 'low' refer to the position of the tongue.
TheInternational Phonetic Alphabethas letters for six degrees of vowel height for full vowels (plus the reduced mid vowel[ə]), but it is extremely unusual for a language to distinguish this many degrees without other attributes. The IPA letters distinguish:
- close(a.k.a.high): i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u
- near-close(a.k.a.near-high): ɪ ʏ ʊ
- close-mid(a.k.a.high-mid): e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o
- mid:(the reduced vowel[ə])
- open-mid(a.k.a.low-mid): ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ
- near-open(a.k.a.near-low): æ (plus the reduced vowel[ɐ])
- open(a.k.a.low): a ɶ ɑ ɒ
The letters ⟨e, ø, ɘ, ɵ, ɤ, o⟩ are defined as close-mid but are commonly used for truemid vowels.If more precision is required, true mid vowels may be written with a lowering or raising diacritic: ⟨e̞, ɘ̞, ø̞, ɵ̞, ɤ̞, o̞⟩ or ⟨ɛ̝ œ̝ ɜ̝ ɞ̝ ʌ̝ ɔ̝⟩.
TheKensiu language,spoken in Malaysia and Thailand, is highly unusual in contrasting true mid vowels with both close-mid and open-mid vowels, without any additional parameters such as length, roundness or ATR. The front vowels,/iɪee̞ɛ/,along with open/a/,make a six-way height distinction; this holds even for the nasal vowels. A few varieties ofGermanhave been reported to have five contrastive vowel heights that are independent of length or other parameters. For example, theBavariandialect ofAmstettenhas thirteen long vowels, which have been analyzed as four vowel heights (close, close-mid, mid, open-mid) each among the front unrounded, front rounded, and back rounded vowels, along with an open vowel for a fifth height:/ieɛ̝ɛ/,/yøœ̝œ/,/uoɔ̝ɔ/,/a/.Apart from the aforementionedKensiu language,no other language is known to contrast more than four degrees of vowel height.
The parameter of vowel height appears to be the primary cross-linguistic feature of vowels in that allspoken languagesthat have been researched till now use height as a contrastive feature. No other parameter, even backness or rounding (see below), is used in all languages. Some languages havevertical vowel systemsin which at least at a phonemic level, only height is used to distinguish vowels.
Backness
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Cardinal_vowel_tongue_position-front.svg/200px-Cardinal_vowel_tongue_position-front.svg.png)
Vowel backness is named for the position of the tongue during the articulation of a vowel relative to the back of the mouth. As with vowel height, however, it isdefinedby a formant of the voice, in this case the second, F2, not by the position of the tongue. In front vowels, such as[i],the frequency of F2 is relatively high, which generally corresponds to a position of the tongue forward in the mouth, whereas in back vowels, such as[u],F2 is low, consistent with the tongue being positioned towards the back of the mouth.
TheInternational Phonetic Alphabetdefines five degrees of vowel backness:
To them may be added front-central and back-central, corresponding to the vertical lines separating central from front and back vowel spaces in several IPA diagrams. However,front-centralandback-centralmay also be used as terms synonymous withnear-frontandnear-back.No language is known to contrast more than three degrees of backness nor is there a language that contrasts front with near-front vowels nor back with near-back ones.
Although some English dialects have vowels at five degrees of backness, there is no known language that distinguishes five degrees of backness without additional differences in height or rounding.
Roundedness
[edit]Roundednessis named after the rounding of the lips in some vowels. Because lip rounding is easily visible, vowels may be commonly identified as rounded based on the articulation of the lips. Acoustically, rounded vowels are identified chiefly by a decrease in F2, although F1 is also slightly decreased.
In most languages, roundedness is a reinforcing feature of mid to high back vowels rather than a distinctive feature. Usually, the higher a back vowel, the more intense is the rounding. However, in some languages, roundedness is independent from backness, such as French and German (with front rounded vowels), mostUralic languages(Estonianhas a rounding contrast for/o/and front vowels),Turkic languages(with a rounding distinction for front vowels and/u/), andVietnamesewith back unrounded vowels.
Nonetheless, even in those languages there is usually some phonetic correlation between rounding and backness: front rounded vowels tend to be more front-central than front, and back unrounded vowels tend to be more back-central than back. Thus, the placement of unrounded vowels to the left of rounded vowels on the IPA vowel chart is reflective of their position in formant space.
Different kinds oflabializationare possible. In mid to high rounded back vowels the lips are generally protruded ( "pursed" ) outward, a phenomenon known asendolabial roundingbecause the insides of the lips are visible, whereas in mid to high rounded front vowels the lips are generally "compressed" with the margins of the lips pulled in and drawn towards each other, a phenomenon known asexolabial rounding.However, not all languages follow that pattern.Japanese/u/,for example, is an exolabial (compressed) back vowel, and sounds quite different from an English endolabial/u/.SwedishandNorwegianare the only two known languages in which the feature is contrastive; they have both exo- and endo-labialclose front vowelsandclose central vowels,respectively. In many phonetic treatments, both are considered types of rounding, but some phoneticians do not believe that these are subsets of a single phenomenon and posit instead three independent features ofrounded(endolabial),compressed(exolabial), and unrounded. The lip position of unrounded vowels may also be classified separately asspreadandneutral(neither rounded nor spread).[12]Others distinguish compressed rounded vowels, in which the corners of the mouth are drawn together, from compressed unrounded vowels, in which the lips are compressed but the corners remain apart as in spread vowels.
Front, raised and retracted
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Esling_vowel_chart.png/220px-Esling_vowel_chart.png)
The conception of the tongue moving in two directions, high–low and front–back, is not supported by articulatory evidence and does not clarify how articulation affects vowel quality. Vowels may instead be characterized by the three directions of movement of the tongue from its neutral position: front (forward), raised (upward and back), and retracted (downward and back). Front vowels ([i,e,ɛ]and, to a lesser extent[ɨ,ɘ,ɜ,æ],etc.), can be secondarily qualified as close or open, as in the traditional conception, but this refers to jaw rather than tongue position. In addition, rather than there being a unitary category of back vowels, the regrouping positsraised vowels,where the body of the tongue approaches the velum ([u,o,ɨ], etc.), andretracted vowels,where the root of the tongue approaches the pharynx ([ɑ,ɔ],etc.):
Membership in these categories is scalar, with the mid-central vowels being marginal to any category.[13]
Nasalization
[edit]Nasalizationoccurs when air escapes through the nose. Vowels are often nasalised under the influence of neighbouring nasal consonants, as inEnglishhand[hæ̃nd].Nasalised vowels,however, should not be confused withnasal vowels.The latter refers to vowels that are distinct from their oral counterparts, as inFrench/ɑ/vs./ɑ̃/.[14]
Innasal vowels,thevelumis lowered, and some air travels through the nasal cavity as well as the mouth. An oral vowel is a vowel in which all air escapes through the mouth.PolishandPortuguesealso contrast nasal and oral vowels.
Phonation
[edit]Voicingdescribes whether thevocal cordsare vibrating during the articulation of a vowel. Most languages have only voiced vowels, but severalNative American languages,such asCheyenneandTotonac,contrast voiced and devoiced vowels. Vowels are devoiced in whispered speech. In Japanese and inQuebec French,vowels that are between voiceless consonants are often devoiced.
Modal voice,creaky voice,andbreathy voice(murmured vowels) arephonationtypes that are used contrastively in some languages. Often, they co-occur withtoneor stress distinctions; in theMon language,vowels pronounced in the high tone are also produced with creaky voice. In such cases, it can be unclear whether it is the tone, the voicing type, or the pairing of the two that is being used forphonemic contrast.The combination of phonetic cues (phonation, tone, stress) is known asregisterorregister complex.
Tenseness
[edit]Tensenessis used to describe the opposition oftense vowelsvs.lax vowels.This opposition has traditionally been thought to be a result of greater muscular tension, though phonetic experiments have repeatedly failed to show this.[citation needed]
Unlike the other features of vowel quality, tenseness is only applicable to the few languages that have this opposition (mainlyGermanic languages,e.g.English), whereas the vowels of the other languages (e.g.Spanish) cannot be described with respect to tenseness in any meaningful way.[citation needed]
One may distinguish the English tense vs. lax vowels roughly, with its spelling. Tense vowels usually occur in words with the finalsilent⟨e⟩,as inmate.Lax vowels occur in words without the silent⟨e⟩,such asmat.InAmerican English,lax vowels[ɪ,ʊ,ɛ,ʌ,æ]do not appear in stressed open syllables.[15]
In traditional grammar,long vowelsvs.short vowelsare more commonly used, compared totenseandlax.The two sets of terms are used interchangeably by some because the features are concomitant in some varieties of English.[clarification needed]In mostGermanic languages,lax vowels can only occur inclosed syllables.Therefore, they are also known aschecked vowels,whereas the tense vowels are calledfree vowelssince they can occur in any kind of syllable.[citation needed]
Tongue root position
[edit]Advanced tongue root (ATR) is a feature common across much of Africa, thePacific Northwest,and scattered other languages such as ModernMongolian.[16]The contrast between advanced and retracted tongue root resembles the tense-lax contrast acoustically, but they are articulated differently. Those vowels involve noticeable tension in the vocal tract.
Secondary narrowings in the vocal tract
[edit]Pharyngealized vowelsoccur in some languages likeSedangand theTungusic languages.Pharyngealisation is similar in articulation to retracted tongue root but isacousticallydistinct.
A stronger degree of pharyngealisation occurs in theNortheast Caucasian languagesand theKhoisan languages.They might be calledepiglottalizedsince the primary constriction is at the tip of the epiglottis.
The greatest degree of pharyngealisation is found in thestrident vowelsof the Khoisan languages, where thelarynxis raised, and the pharynx constricted, so that either the epiglottis or thearytenoid cartilagesvibrate instead of the vocal cords.
The termspharyngealized,epiglottalized,strident,andsphinctericare sometimes used interchangeably.
Rhotic vowels
[edit]Rhotic vowelsare the "R-colored vowels" of American English and a few other languages.
Reduced vowels
[edit]Near- front |
Central | Near- back | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Near-close | ᵻ | ᵿ | ||
Mid | ə | |||
Near-open | ɐ |
Some languages, such as English and Russian, have what are called 'reduced', 'weak' or 'obscure' vowels in some unstressed positions. These do not correspond one-to-one with the vowel sounds that occur in stressed position (so-called 'full' vowels), and they tend to be mid-centralized in comparison, as well as having reduced rounding or spreading. The IPA has long provided two letters for obscure vowels, mid ⟨ə⟩ and lower ⟨ɐ⟩, neither of which are defined for rounding. Dialects of English may have up to four phonemic reduced vowels:/ɐ/,/ə/,and higher unrounded/ᵻ/and rounded/ᵿ/.(The non-IPA letters ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ may be used for the latter to avoid confusion with the clearly defined values of IPA letters like ⟨ɨ⟩ and ⟨ɵ⟩, which are also seen, since the IPA only provides for two reduced vowels.)
Acoustics
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Spectrogram_-iua-.png/400px-Spectrogram_-iua-.png)
The acoustics of vowels are fairly well understood. The different vowel qualities are realized in acoustic analyses of vowels by the relative values of theformants,acousticresonancesof the vocal tract which show up as dark bands on aspectrogram.The vocal tract acts as aresonant cavity,and the position of the jaw, lips, and tongue affect the parameters of the resonant cavity, resulting in different formant values. The acoustics of vowels can be visualized using spectrograms, which display the acoustic energy at each frequency, and how this changes with time.
The first formant, abbreviated "F1", corresponds to vowel openness (vowel height).Open vowelshave high F1 frequencies, whileclose vowelshave low F1 frequencies, as can be seen in the accompanying spectrogram: The[i]and[u]have similar low first formants, whereas[ɑ]has a higher formant.
The second formant, F2, corresponds to vowel frontness.Back vowelshave low F2 frequencies, whilefront vowelshave high F2 frequencies. This is very clear in the spectrogram, where the front vowel[i]has a much higher F2 frequency than the other two vowels. However, in open vowels, the high F1 frequency forces a rise in the F2 frequency as well, so an alternative measure of frontness is thedifferencebetween the first and second formants. For this reason, some people prefer to plot as F1 vs. F2 – F1. (This dimension is usually called 'backness' rather than 'frontness', but the term 'backness' can be counterintuitive when discussing formants.)
In the third edition of his textbook,Peter Ladefogedrecommended using plots of F1 against F2 – F1 to represent vowel quality.[17]However, in the fourth edition, he changed to adopt a simple plot of F1 against F2,[18]and this simple plot of F1 against F2 was maintained for the fifth (and final) edition of the book.[19]Katrina Hayward compares the two types of plots and concludes that plotting of F1 against F2 – F1 "is not very satisfactory because of its effect on the placing of the central vowels",[20]so she also recommends use of a simple plot of F1 against F2. In fact, this kind of plot of F1 against F2 has been used by analysts to show the quality of the vowels in a wide range of languages, including RP,[21][22]the Queen's English,[23]American English,[24]Singapore English,[25]Brunei English,[26]North Frisian,[27]Turkish Kabardian,[28]and various indigenous Australian languages.[29]
R-colored vowelsare characterized by lowered F3 values.
Rounding is generally realized by a decrease of F2 that tends to reinforce vowel backness. One effect of this is that back vowels are most commonly rounded while front vowels are most commonly unrounded; another is that rounded vowels tend to plot to the right of unrounded vowels in vowel charts. That is, there is a reason for plotting vowel pairs the way they are.
Prosody and intonation
[edit]In addition to variation in vowel quality as described above, vowels vary as a result of differences inprosody.The most important prosodic variables arepitch(fundamental frequency),loudness(intensity) andlength(duration). However, the features of prosody are usually considered to apply not to the vowel itself, but to thesyllablein which the vowel occurs. In other words, thedomainof prosody is the syllable, not the segment (vowel or consonant).[30]We can list briefly the effect of prosody on the vowel component of a syllable.
- Pitch: in the case of a syllable such as 'cat', the onlyvoicedportion of the syllable is the vowel, so the vowel carries the pitch information. This may relate to the syllable in which it occurs, or to a larger stretch of speech to which an intonation contour belongs. In a word such as 'man', all the segments in the syllable aresonorantand all will participate in any pitch variation.
- Loudness: this variable has been traditionally associated with linguisticstress,though other factors are usually involved in this. Lehiste (ibid) argues that stress, or loudness, could not be associated with a single segment in a syllable independently of the rest of the syllable (p. 147). This means that vowel loudness is a concomitant of the loudness of the syllable in which it occurs.
- Length: it is important to distinguish two aspects ofvowel length.One is thephonologicaldifference in length exhibited by some languages.Japanese,Finnish,Hungarian,ArabicandLatinhave a two-way phonemic contrast betweenshort and long vowels.TheMixe languagehas a three-way contrast among short, half-long, and long vowels.[31]The other type of length variation in vowels is non-distinctive, and is the result of prosodic variation in speech: vowels tend to be lengthened when in a stressed syllable, or when utterance rate is slow.
Monophthongs, diphthongs, triphthongs
[edit]A vowel sound whose quality does not change throughout the vowel is called amonophthong.Monophthongs are sometimes called "pure" or "stable" vowels. A vowel sound that glides from one quality to another is called adiphthong,and a vowel sound that glides successively through three qualities is atriphthong.
All languages have monophthongs and many languages have diphthongs, but triphthongs or vowel sounds with even more target qualities are relatively rare cross-linguistically. English has all three types: the vowel sound inhitis a monophthong/ɪ/,the vowel sound inboyis in most dialects a diphthong/ɔɪ/,and the vowel sounds offlower,/aʊər/,form a triphthong or disyllable, depending on the dialect.
Inphonology,diphthongs and triphthongs are distinguished from sequences of monophthongs by whether the vowel sound may be analyzed into distinctphonemes.For example, the vowel sounds in a two-syllable pronunciation of the wordflower(/ˈflaʊər/) phonetically form a disyllabic triphthong but are phonologically a sequence of a diphthong (represented by the letters⟨ow⟩) and a monophthong (represented by the letters⟨er⟩). Some linguists use the termsdiphthongandtriphthongonly in this phonemic sense.
Written vowels
[edit]The name "vowel" is often used for the symbols that represent vowel sounds in a language'swriting system,particularly if the language uses analphabet.In writing systems based on theLatin alphabet,the letters⟨a⟩,⟨e⟩,⟨i⟩,⟨o⟩,⟨u⟩,⟨y⟩,⟨w⟩and sometimes others can all be used to represent vowels. However, not all of these letters represent the vowels in all languages that use this writing, or even consistently within one language. Some of them, especially⟨w⟩and⟨y⟩,are also used to representapproximant consonants.Moreover, a vowel might be represented by a letter usually reserved for consonants, or a combination of letters, particularly where one letter represents several sounds at once, or vice versa; examples from English include⟨igh⟩in "thigh" and⟨x⟩in "x-ray". In addition, extensions of the Latin alphabet have such independent vowel letters as⟨ä⟩,⟨ö⟩,⟨ü⟩,⟨å⟩,⟨æ⟩,and⟨ø⟩.
The phonetic values vary considerably by language, and some languages use⟨i⟩and⟨y⟩for the consonant[j],e.g., initial⟨i⟩inItalianorRomanianand initial⟨y⟩in English. In the original Latin alphabet, there was no written distinction between⟨v⟩and⟨u⟩,and the letter represented the approximant[w]and the vowels[u]and[ʊ].In ModernWelsh,⟨w⟩represents these same sounds. There is not necessarily a direct one-to-one correspondence between the vowel sounds of a language and the vowel letters. Many languages that use a form of the Latin alphabet have more vowel sounds than can be represented by the standard set of five vowel letters. In English spelling, the five letters⟨a⟩⟨e⟩⟨i⟩⟨o⟩and⟨u⟩can represent a variety of vowel sounds, while the letter⟨y⟩frequently represents vowels (as in e.g., "gym "," happy",or the diphthongs in" cry","thyme ");[32]⟨w⟩is used in representing somediphthongs(as in "cow") and to represent amonophthongin the borrowed words "cwm"and"crwth"(sometimescruth).
Other languages cope with the limitation in the number of Latin vowel letters in similar ways. Many languages make extensive use of combinations of letters to represent various sounds. Other languages use vowel letters with modifications, such as⟨ä⟩inSwedish,or adddiacriticalmarks, likeumlauts,to vowels to represent the variety of possible vowel sounds. Some languages have also constructed additional vowel letters by modifying the standard Latin vowels in other ways, such as⟨æ⟩or⟨ø⟩that are found in some of theScandinavian languages.TheInternational Phonetic Alphabethas a set of 28 symbols representing the range of essential vowel qualities, and a further set of diacritics to denote variations from the basic vowel.
The writing systems used for some languages, such as theHebrew alphabetand theArabic alphabet,do not ordinarily mark all the vowels, since they are frequently unnecessary in identifying a word.[citation needed]Technically, these are calledabjadsrather than alphabets. Although it is possible to construct English sentences that can be understood without written vowels (cn y rd ths?), single words in English lacking written vowels can be indistinguishable; considerdd,which could be any ofdad, dada, dado, dead, deed, did, died, diode, dodo, dud, dude, odd, add,andaided.(Abjads generally express some word-internal vowels and all word-initial and word-final vowels, whereby the ambiguity will be much reduced.) TheMasoretesdevised avowel notation systemfor HebrewJewish scripturethat is still widely used, as well as thetropesymbols used for itscantillation;both are part oforal traditionand still the basis for many bible translations—Jewish and Christian.
Shifts
[edit]The differences in pronunciation of vowel letters between English and its related languages can be accounted for by theGreat Vowel Shift.After printing was introduced to England, and therefore after spelling was more or less standardized, a series of dramatic changes in the pronunciation of the vowel phonemes occurred, and continued into recent centuries, but were not reflected in the spelling system. This has led to numerous inconsistencies in the spelling of English vowel sounds and the pronunciation of English vowel letters (and to the mispronunciation of foreign words and names by speakers of English).
Audio samples
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Legend:unrounded•rounded |
Systems
[edit]The importance of vowels in distinguishing one word from another varies from language to language. Nearly all languages have at least three phonemic vowels, usually/i/,/a/,/u/as inClassical ArabicandInuktitut,thoughAdygheand manySepik languageshave avertical vowel systemof/ɨ/,/ə/,/a/.Very few languages have fewer, though someArrernte,Circassian,andNdu languageshave been argued to have just two,/ə/and/a/,with[ɨ]beingepenthetic.
It is not straightforward to say which language has the most vowels, since that depends on how they are counted. For example, long vowels, nasal vowels, and variousphonationsmay or may not be counted separately; indeed, it may sometimes be unclear if phonation belongs to the vowels or the consonants of a language. If such things are ignored and only vowels with dedicated IPA letters ('vowel qualities') are considered, then very few languages have more than ten. TheGermanic languageshave some of the largest inventories:Standard Danishhas 11 to 13 short vowels (/(a),ɑ,(ɐ),e,ə,ɛ,i,o,ɔ,u,ø,œ,y/), while theAmstettendialect ofBavarianhas been reported to have thirteen long vowels:/i,y,e,ø,ɛ,œ,æ,ɶ,a,ɒ,ɔ,o,u/.[citation needed]The situation can be quite disparate within a same family language:SpanishandFrenchare two closely relatedRomance languagesbut Spanish has only five pure vowel qualities,/a,e,i,o,u/,while classical French has eleven:/a,ɑ,e,ɛ,i,o,ɔ,u,y,œ,ø/and four nasal vowels/ɑ̃/,/ɛ̃/,/ɔ̃/and/œ̃/.TheMon–Khmer languagesof Southeast Asia also have some large inventories, such as the eleven vowels ofVietnamese:/i,e,ɛ,ɐ,a,ə,ɔ,ɤ,o,ɯ,u/.Wudialects have the largest inventories of Chinese; theJinhui dialectof Wu has also been reported to have eleven vowels: ten basic vowels,/i,y,e,ø,ɛ,ɑ,ɔ,o,u,ɯ/,plus restricted/ɨ/;this does not count the seven nasal vowels.[33]
One of the most common vowels is[a̠];it is nearly universal for a language to have at least one open vowel, though most dialects of English have an[æ]and a[ɑ]—and often an[ɒ],all open vowels—but no central[a].SomeTagalogandCebuanospeakers have[ɐ]rather than[a],andDhangu Yolnguis described as having/ɪɐʊ/,without any peripheral vowels.[i]is also extremely common, thoughTehuelchehas just the vowels/eao/with no close vowels. The third vowel of the Arabic-type three-vowel system,/u/,is considerably less common. A large fraction of the languages of North America happen to have a four-vowel system without/u/:/i,e,a,o/;NahuatlandNavajoare examples.
In most languages, vowels serve mainly to distinguish separatelexemes,rather than different inflectional forms of the same lexeme as they commonly do in the Semitic languages. For example, while Englishmanbecomesmenin the plural,moonis a completely different word.
Words without vowels
[edit]In rhotic dialects of English, as in Canada and the United States, there are many words such asbird, learn, girl, church, worst, worm,myrrhthat some phoneticians analyze as having no vowels, only a syllabic consonant/ɹ̩/.However, others analyze these words instead as having arhotic vowel,/ɝː/.The difference may be partially one of dialect.
There are a few such words that are disyllabic, likecursor,curtain,andturtle:[ˈkɹ̩sɹ̩],[ˈkɹ̩tn̩]and[ˈtɹ̩tl̩](or[ˈkɝːsɚ],[ˈkɝːtən],and[ˈtɝːtəl]), and even a few that are trisyllabic, at least in some accents, such aspurpler[ˈpɹ̩.pl̩.ɹ̩],hurdler[ˈhɹ̩.dl̩.ɹ̩],gurgler[ˈɡɹ̩.ɡl̩.ɹ̩],andcertainer[ˈsɹ̩.tn̩.ɹ̩].
The wordandfrequently contracts to a simplenasal’n,as inlock 'n key[ˌlɒkŋˈkiː].Words such aswill, have,andisregularly contract to’ll[l],’ve[v],and 's[z].However, none of them are pronounced alone without vowels, so they are not phonological words.Onomatopoeicwords that can be pronounced alone, and that have no vowels or ars, includehmm, pst!, shh!,tsk!,andzzz.As in other languages, onomatopoeiae stand outside the normal phonotactics of English.
There are other languages that form lexical words without vowel sounds. InSerbo-Croatian,for example, the consonants[r]and[rː](the difference is not written) can act as asyllable nucleusand carry rising or fallingtone;examples include the tongue-twisterna vrh brda vrba mrdaand geographic names such asKrk.InCzechandSlovak,either[l]or[r]can stand in for vowels:vlk[vl̩k]"wolf",krk[kr̩k]"neck". A particularly long word without vowels isčtvrthrst,meaning "quarter-handful", with two syllables (one for each R), orscvrnkls,a verb form meaning "you flipped (sth) down" (eg a marble). Whole sentences (usually tongue-twisters) can be made from such words, such asStrč prst skrz krk,meaning "stick a finger through your neck" (pronounced[str̩tʃpr̩stskr̩skr̩k] ), andSmrž pln skvrn zvlhl z mlh.(Herezvlhlhas two syllables based on L; and theprepositionzconsists of a single consonant. Only prepositions do this in Czech, and they normally link phonetically to the following word, so not really behave as vowelless words.) In Russian, there are also prepositions that consist of a single consonant letter, likek,'to',v,'in', ands,'with'. However, these forms are actually contractions ofko,vo,andsorespectively, and these forms are still used in modern Russian before words with certain consonant clusters for ease of pronunciation.
InKazakhand certain otherTurkic languages,words without vowel sounds may occur due to reduction of weak vowels. A common example is the Kazakh word for one:bir,pronounced[br].Among careful speakers, however, the original vowel may be preserved, and the vowels are always preserved in the orthography.
In Southernvarieties of Chinese,such asCantoneseandMinnan,some monosyllabic words are made of exclusivelynasals,such as Cantonese[m̩˨˩]"no" and[ŋ̩˩˧]"five". Minnan also has words consisting of a consonant followed by a syllabic nasal, such aspn̄g"cooked rice".
So far, all of these syllabic consonants, at least in thelexical words,have beensonorants,such as[r],[l],[m],and[n],which have avoicedquality similar to vowels. (They can carry tone, for example.) However, there are languages with lexical words that not only contain no vowels, but contain no sonorants at all, like (non-lexical)shh!in English. These include someBerber languagesand some languages of the AmericanPacific Northwest,such asNuxalk.An example from the latter isscs"seal fat" (pronounced[sxs],as spelled), and a longer one isclhp'xwlhtlhplhhskwts'(pronounced[xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ]) "he had had in his possession a bunchberry plant". (Follow the Nuxalk link for other examples.) Berber examples include/tkkststt/"you took it off" and/tfktstt/"you gave it". Some words may contain one or two consonants only:/ɡ/"be",/ks/"feed on".[34](InMandarin Chinese,words and syllables such assīandzhīare sometimes described as being syllabic fricatives and affricates phonemically,/ś/and/tʂ́/,but these do have a voiced segment that carries the tone.) In theJaponic languageMiyako,there are words with no voiced sounds, such asss'dust',kss'breast/milk',pss'day',ff'a comb',kff'to make',fks'to build',ksks'month',sks'to cut',psks'to pull'.
Some analyses ofWandalais reported to have no phonemic vowels.[35]
Words consisting of only vowels
[edit]It is not uncommon for short grammatical words to consist of only vowels, such asaandIin English. Lexical words are somewhat rarer in English and are generally restricted to a single syllable:eye, awe, owe,and in non-rhotic accentsair, ore, err.Vowel-only words of more than one syllable are generally foreign loans, such asai(two syllables:/ˈɑːi/) for themaned sloth,or proper names, such asIowa(in some accents:/ˈaɪ.oʊ.ə/).
However, vowel sequences inhiatusare more freely allowed in some other languages, most famously perhaps inBantuandPolynesianlanguages, but also inJapaneseandFinnic languages.In such languages there tends to be a larger variety of vowel-only words. InSwahili(Bantu), for example, there isaua'to survey' andeua'to purify' (both three syllables); in Japanese,aoiThanh い 'blue/green' andoioiTruy 々 'gradually' (three and fourmorae); and in Finnish,aie'intention' andauo'open!' (both two syllables), although some dialects pronounce them asaijeandauvo.InUrdu,āye/aaieآئیےor āynآئیں'come' is used.Hawaiian,and the Polynesian languages generally, have unusually large numbers of such words, such asaeāea(a small green fish), which is three syllables:ae.āe.a.Most long words involvereduplication,which is quiteproductivein Polynesian:ioio'grooves',eaea'breath',uaua'tough' (all four syllables),auēuē'crying' (five syllables, fromuē (uwē)'to weep'),uoaoruouoa'false mullet' (sp. fish, three or five syllables).[citation needed]
See also
[edit]- English phonology
- Great Vowel Shift
- Inherent vowel
- List of phonetics topics
- Mater lectionis
- Scale of vowels
- Table of vowels
- Vowel coalescence
- Words without vowels
- Zero consonant
Notes
[edit]- ^According toPeter Ladefoged,traditional articulatory descriptions such as height and backness "are not entirely satisfactory", and when phoneticians describe a vowel as high or low, they are in fact describing an acoustic quality rather than the actual position of the tongue.[11]
References
[edit]- ^Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996,p. 281.
- ^"Vowel".Online Etymology Dictionary.Retrieved12 April2012.
- ^Dictionary.com:vowel
- ^Cruttenden, Alan (2014).Gimson's Pronunciation of English(Eighth ed.). Routledge. p. 27.ISBN9781444183092.
- ^Cruttenden, Alan (2014).Gimson's Pronunciation of English(Eighth ed.). Routledge. p. 53.ISBN9781444183092.
- ^Laver, John (1994)Principles of Phonetics,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 269.
- ^Crystal, David (2005)A Dictionary of Linguistics & Phonetics (Fifth Edition),Maldern, MA/Oxford: Blackwell, p. 494.
- ^Ladefoged, Peter;Maddieson, Ian(1996).The Sounds of the World's Languages.Oxford: Blackwell. p. 323.ISBN0-631-19815-6.
- ^Ladefoged & Disner (2012)Vowels and Consonants,3rd ed., p. 132.
- ^IPA (1999)Handbook of the IPA,p. 12.
- ^Ladefoged, Peter (2006)A Course in Phonetics (Fifth Edition),Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth, p. 189.
- ^IPA (1999), p. 13.
- ^John Esling (2005) "There Are No Back Vowels: The Laryngeal Articulator Model",The Canadian Journal of Linguistics50: 13–44
- ^Botma, Bert (8 December 2020)."Nasals and Nasalization".Oxford Bibliographies.Oxford.Retrieved27 June2017.
- ^Ladefoged, Peter& Johnson, Keith. (2011). Tense and Lax Vowels. InA Course in Phonetics(6th ed., pp. 98–100). Boston, MA: Cengage.
- ^Bessell, Nicola J. (1993).Towards a phonetic and phonological typology of post-velar articulation(Thesis). University of British Columbia.
- ^Ladefoged, Peter (1993)A Course in Phonetics (Third Edition),Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, p. 197.
- ^Ladefoged, Peter (2001)A Course in Phonetics (Fourth Edition),Fort Worth: Harcourt, p. 177.
- ^Ladefoged, Peter (2006)A Course in Phonetics (Fifth Edition),Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, p. 189.
- ^Hayward, Katrina (2000)Experimental Phonetics,Harlow, UK: Pearson, p. 160.
- ^Deterding, David (1997). "The formants of monophthong vowels in Standard Southern British English Pronunciation".Journal of the International Phonetic Association.27(1–2): 47–55.doi:10.1017/S0025100300005417.S2CID146157247.
- ^Hawkins, Sarah and Jonathan Midgley (2005). "Formant frequencies of RP monophthongs in four age groups of speakers".Journal of the International Phonetic Association.35(2): 183–199.doi:10.1017/S0025100305002124.S2CID53532910.
- ^Harrington, Jonathan, Sallyanne Palethorpe and Catherine Watson (2005) Deepening or lessening the divide between diphthongs: an analysis of the Queen's annual Christmas broadcasts. In William J. Hardcastle and Janet Mackenzie Beck (eds.)A Figure of Speech: A Festschrift for John Laver,Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 227-261.
- ^Flemming, Edward and Stephanie Johnson (2007)."Rosa's roses: reduced vowels in American English"(PDF).Journal of the International Phonetic Association.37:83–96.CiteSeerX10.1.1.536.1989.doi:10.1017/S0025100306002817.S2CID145535175.
- ^Deterding, David (2003). "An instrumental study of the monophthong vowels of Singapore English".English World-Wide.24:1–16.doi:10.1075/eww.24.1.02det.
- ^Salbrina, Sharbawi (2006). "The vowels of Brunei English: an acoustic investigation".English World-Wide.27(3): 247–264.doi:10.1075/eww.27.3.03sha.
- ^Bohn, Ocke-Schwen(2004)."How to organize a fairly large vowel inventory: the vowels of Fering (North Frisian)"(PDF).Journal of the International Phonetic Association.34(2): 161–173.doi:10.1017/S002510030400180X.S2CID59404078.
- ^Gordon, Matthew and Ayla Applebaum (2006)."Phonetic structures of Turkish Kabardian"(PDF).Journal of the International Phonetic Association.36(2): 159–186.CiteSeerX10.1.1.233.1206.doi:10.1017/S0025100306002532.S2CID6665600.
- ^Fletcher, Janet (2006) Exploring the phonetics of spoken narratives in Australian indigenous languages. In William J. Hardcastle and Janet Mackenzie Beck (eds.)A Figure of Speech: A Festschrift for John Laver,Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 201–226.
- ^Lehiste, Ilse,Suprasegmentals,M.I.T 1970, pp. 42, 84, 147
- ^Ladefoged, P. and Maddieson, I.The Sounds of the World's Languages,Blackwell (1996), p 320
- ^Inwyrmandmyrrh,there is neither a vowel letter nor, in rhotic dialects, a vowel sound.
- ^Values in open oral syllablesArchived2011-07-26 at theWayback Machine
- ^Audio recordings of selected words without vowels can be downloaded from"audio.doc".Archived fromthe originalon 2009-03-20.Retrieved2009-06-19..
- ^Wolff, H. Ekkehard."'Vocalogenesis' in (Central) Chadic languages "(PDF).Retrieved2 December2017.
Bibliography
[edit]- Handbook of the International Phonetic Association,1999.Cambridge UniversityISBN978-0-521-63751-0
- Johnson, Keith,Acoustic & Auditory Phonetics,second edition, 2003. BlackwellISBN978-1-4051-0123-3
- Korhonen, Mikko.Koltansaamen opas,1973. CastreanumISBN978-951-45-0189-0
- Ladefoged, Peter,A Course in Phonetics,fifth edition, 2006. Boston, MA: Thomson WadsworthISBN978-1-4130-2079-3
- Ladefoged, Peter,Elements of Acoustic Phonetics,1995.University of ChicagoISBN978-0-226-46764-1
- Ladefoged, Peter;Maddieson, Ian(1996).The Sounds of the World's Languages.Oxford: Blackwell.ISBN0-631-19815-6.
- Ladefoged, Peter,Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages,2000. BlackwellISBN978-0-631-21412-0.
- Lindau, Mona. (1978). "Vowel features".Language.54(3): 541–563.doi:10.2307/412786.JSTOR412786.
- Stevens, Kenneth N. (1998).Acoustic phonetics.Current studies in linguistics (No. 30). Cambridge, MA: MIT.ISBN978-0-262-19404-4.
- Stevens, Kenneth N. (2000). "Toward a model for lexical access based on acoustic landmarks and distinctive features".The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.111(4): 1872–1891.Bibcode:2002ASAJ..111.1872S.doi:10.1121/1.1458026.PMID12002871.S2CID1811670.
- Watt, D. and Tillotson, J. (2001). A spectrographic analysis of vowel fronting in Bradford English.English World-Wide22:2, 269–302. Available athttps://web.archive.org/web/20120412023624/http://www.abdn.ac.uk/langling/resources/Watt-Tillotson2001.pdf
External links
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg/40px-Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg.png)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- IPA chartwithMP3sound files
- IPA vowel chartwithAIFFsound files
- Materials for measuring and plotting vowel formants
- Vowels and ConsonantsArchived2005-07-03 at theWayback MachineOnline examples from Ladefoged'sVowels and Consonants,referenced above.