Andrew Radford - Linguistics An Introduction [Second Edition]

The vowels in (18) are different from those in (17) in two ways. Firstly, they are longer, a difference in quantity. Secondly, most of them differ in quality, with the tongue adopting a slightly different position for the vowels in, for example, pit and me. In some languages, such as Czech, Japanese or Yoruba, vowels can differ purely in length without any concomitant change in quality. In English, however, this is not always the case. The IPA symbol for ‘long vowel’ is ː placed after the vowel symbol, and adding the long vowels to our vowel quadrilateral we get

figure 13. This figure also shows the British English [a] vowel mentioned above: In figure 13, we can also see that different symbols have been used for some pairs of short and long vowels. For instance, the long ‘i’ vowel is written with the symbol

[iː], not [ɪː], and the long ‘a’ vowel is written [ɑː] rather than [ɒː]. These differences correspond to differences in the sound of the vowel itself irrespective of its length –

they signal differences in vowel quality. A further distinction which it is useful to make is that between short [i u] vowels (not represented in figure 13) and short [ɪ ʊ]

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sounds

Figure 13 The vowel quadrilateral (with long vowels)

Figure 14 The vowel quadrilateral, including mid-closed vowels

vowels. The [i u] vowels are made with a ‘tenser’ articulation than are [ɪ ʊ], i.e. the position of the tongue is further from its rest or neutral position for the former pair of vowels. Because of this, we call [i u] tense vowels and [ɪ ʊ] lax vowels.

Each of the vowels we have considered up to now has a single constant quality.

This is not so for the vowels in the words in (19):

(19)

bay

buy

bough

[rain]bow

boy

[beɪ]

[baɪ]

[baʊ]

[bou]

[bɔɪ]

In each of these words, the vowel starts off with one quality and changes to a different quality. This is indicated in the transcriptions in (19), each of which includes two vowel symbols. Furthermore, the transcriptions for bay [beɪ] and bow

[bou] include two symbols, [e o], which though familiar from English orthography, have not yet been introduced as IPA symbols. These are similar to the [ɛ ɔ] vowels but are slightly higher and tenser. We describe this difference by saying that [e o]

are mid closed vowels while [ɛ ɔ] are mid open vowels. Alternatively, linguists often refer to [e o] as tense (mid) vowels and [ɛ ɔ] as lax (mid) vowels. Thus, we can contrast the set of tense vowels [i e u o] with the set of lax vowels [ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ].

We can represent the position of these new vowels in the quadrilateral in figure 14

(note that we do not represent vowel length in this quadrilateral).

Where a vowel consists of two components, as in the examples in (19), it is called a diphthong (from the Greek meaning ‘two sounds’). The single, pure

vowels in (17) and (18) are then called monophthongs. Some varieties of English are particularly rich in diphthongs, and diphthongs are also very common in totally unrelated languages such as Cambodian and Estonian. However, some languages lack true diphthongs altogether (e.g. Russian, Hungarian, Japanese).

Sounds and suprasegmentals

39

Figure 15 The diphthongs of English

Finally, we come to another set of English diphthongs, mainly found in

non-rhotic dialects. They are illustrated by the words in (20): (20)

peer

poor

[pɪə]

[pʊə]

For many speakers, words such as pear/pair and mare would belong here – note that in (18) we have regarded mare as containing a pure vowel – and would be transcribed [peə] or [pɛə] and [meə] or [mɛə], respectively. In figure 15 we have shown the ‘trajectory’ involved in the formation of each of the diphthongs we have introduced.

The description of vowels we have offered so far is sufficient for many varieties of English. However, some dialects use different vowel sounds. For instance, in conservative RP, you might hear go pronounced as [gəʊ]; and for many US

speakers some of these diphthongs are long monophthongs (e.g. day [deː]). It should be noted that lip rounding, which was observed above as a feature of the English vowels [ʊ ɒ] is also a characteristic of [u o ɔ]. The vowel quadrilaterals we have examined do not explicitly indicate whether a vowel is accompanied by

rounding or not.

There is one final feature of the transcription of English vowel sounds worth mentioning here. As already observed, unlike many varieties of British English, most dialects of American English have vowels with an ‘r’-colouring to them, as in bird, fear, card, more, air, murder. It is produced by retracting the tongue as if to produce the sound [ɹ] as in run during the production of the vowel sound. Where greater accuracy isn’t essential, it is often transcribed by just adding [r] after the vowel, e.g. murder [mərdər]. However, where we need more precise transcriptions, we use special symbols such as [ɚ ]. Thus, we can transcribe murder as

[mɚdɚ] and air as [ː]. The little hook on [ɚ] and [] can be thought of as a diacritic.

We conclude this survey of basic sounds by briefly looking at vowel sounds

which do not occur in standard varieties of English. Focusing on lip rounding, there is a strong tendency in the world’s languages for back vowels which are not low to be rounded and for front vowels and low vowels to be unrounded.

However, we do find vowels which are exceptions to this tendency, and some of the more common correspondences are shown in (21):

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sounds

(21)

front

back

unrounded

rounded

rounded

unrounded

i

y

u

ɯ

ɪ

y

e

ø

o

ɤ

ɛ

œ

ɔ

ʌ

ɒ

ɑ

Thus, [y y ø œ] sound like [i ɪ e ɛ], except that in producing them, the lips are rounded. On the other hand, the sounds [ɯ ɤ] correspond to [u o] but are produced with spread lips.

With two exceptions, all the vowels discussed so far have been placed close to the right or left edge of the vowel quadrilateral, and generally with a little practice, we can feel confident about locating such vowels. However, we observed that the sound schwa [ə] and the vowel [a] occupy a central position on the front/back axis, and vowels such as these are generally less easy to be sure about. From this, it does not follow that such vowels do not exist, and a number of central vowels are shown in figure 16 along with the rounded and unrounded vowels from (21).

The four new vowels in figure 16 [ɨ u ɜ ɐ] are all unrounded except for [u], a central high rounded vowel.

Finally, it should be noted that the ‘r’-colouring of American vowels mentioned above is not the only sort of colouring that vowels can undergo. Another colouring that vowels often receive is nasalisation. This is the result of allowing air to pass through the nasal passage, as though for a nasal consonant such as [n], while still letting the air flow through the mouth. A nasal vowel is indicated by a diacritic symbol placed over the vowel, e.g. [õ, , ]. In languages such as French, Polish, Yoruba (one of the main languages of Nigeria) and many others, nasal vowels play an important role. Here are some words of Yoruba in transcription:

(22)

oral vowels

nasal vowels

[ka]

‘to be placed on’

[kã]

‘to touch’

[ku]

‘to remain’

[kũ]

‘to apply paint’

[si]

‘and’

[sĩ]

‘to accompany’

Figure 16 The vowel quadrilateral, including central vowels

Sounds and suprasegmentals

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Nasal vowels are also heard in many varieties of English. A typical pronunciation of the word can’t, in American English especially, is, in fact, [kːt], with the sequence [æn] being replaced by a long nasalised vowel (exercises 4, 5 and 6).