Ling 205Vowels and Glides

Fall 2013

Topics

• Cardinal vowel system– Primary Cardinal Vowels

– Secondary Cardinal Vowels

– Central Vowels

• Other vowel distinctions– Pharyngeal expansion (ATR)

– Nasalization

– Rhotacization

– Length

• Some non-English glides (vocalic approximants)

Vowel Discrimination

• Try to distinguish as many vowels as possible:http://www.ualberta.ca/~kirchner/205/MyFairLadyClip.avi

clip from “My Fair Lady”

Daniel Jones

• English Phonetician (1881-1967)

• Devised Cardinal Vowel System

• An Outline of English Phonetics (1918, Ch. 8.)

Cardinal vowels

Cardinal Vowels

• By definition the cardinal vowels are arbitrary reference points

• evenly spaced around the outside of the possible vowel area

• Sound clips produced by Daniel Jones in 1956 when he was 75: http://www.let.uu.nl/~audiufon/data/e_cardinal_vowels.html

From cardinal vowels to vowels in IPA

Dimensions of vowel space

• High/low

• front/back

• Rounded/unrounded

Learning of the Cardinal Vowels

Cardinal Vowels can only be learnt from a teacher who knows how to make them or from a gramophone record or tape record. It is for the purpose of making these vowels widely known that these (...) records have been prepared.

Daniel Jones (1956 )

http://www.let.uu.nl/~audiufon/data/e_cardinal_vowels.html

Intellectual Genealogy

• Paul Passy (1859-1940; Founder of the IPA, French phonetician) → Daniel Jones (1881-1967) → David Abercrombie (1909-1992) → Peter Ladefoged (1925-2006)

→ Patricia Keating (1952? - )

→ me (1961 - )

Two extreme positions

just short of a palatal

fricative

just short of a pharyngeal fricative

Primary Cardinal Vowel: Front unrounded

Primary Cardinal Vowel: Back rounded (except [ɑ])

Secondary Cardinal Vowel: Front rounded

• Deliberate reversal of normal action of the lips

FrenchPronunciation Orthography Gloss

li lit Bed

le les the, plural

lɛ laid ugly

la là there

lɑ las tired

lɔk loque rag

lo lot prize

lu loup wolf

ly lu read, past part.

lø le the, m., sing.

lœʁ leur their

http://phonetics.ucla.edu/vowels/chapter14/french.html

Secondary Cardinal Vowel: Back unrounded (except [ɒ])

Vietnamese back unrounded vowels(Ladefoged, 2001, p. 268)

http://phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter11/vietnamese/vietnamese.html

Interim Summary: Cardinal Vowels

• Sounds produced by Daniel Jones

Central Vowels

Additional miscellaneous Vowels

• [a] is officially a front vowel

• No IPA symbol for an open low central vowel

• [a] is nevertheless frequently so-used

(a)

Swedish Vowel Chart

Preference of unrounded front vowels and rounded back vowels?

• The features front and unrounded both conspire to increase F2

– The highest F2 found in vowels is in /i/.

• Back and round conspire to lower the second formant, so the lowest F2 is found in /u/.

More levels of height than those of front/back?

• Auditory response to low frequencies (e.g. F1) is better tuned than that to high frequencies (e.g. F2)

Summary

• Cardinal Vowel System– Primary Cardinal Vowels– Secondary Cardinal Vowels– Central Vowels

• Identifying vowel quality based on formant frequencies– F1 is inversely related to height– F2 is related to frontness/backness

– (Lip) rounding lowers formant values (esp. F2)

Other vowel distinctions

• Nasalization• Rhotacization• Length• Pharyngeal expansion (ATR)

Glides (vocalic approximants)

• Bilabial: ββ̞ (lip constriction without tongue body raising)

• Labiodental: ʋ (a weak [v])• Palatal: j (glide corresponding to [i])• Labiopalatal: ɥ (glide corresponding to [y])• Velar: ɰ (glide corresponding to [ɯ])• Labiovelar: w (glide corresponding to [u])

Practise transcription of vowels

mock quiz