UNIVERZITA KONŠTANTÍNA FILOZOFA V NITRE

FILOZOFICKÁ FAKULTA

Rigorózna práca

Nitra, 2010 Mgr. Daniela Hammoud

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CONSTANTINE THE PHILOSOPHER UNIVERSITY IN NITRA

FACULTY OF ARTS

Department of the English Language and Literature

Rigorosis Diploma Thesis

Acoustic Analysis of Vowel Tenseness in Varieties of British English

Akustická analýza napätosti samohlások v dialektoch britskej angličtiny

Nitra, 2010 Mgr. Daniela Hammoud

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Čestné prehlásenie

Podpísaná Mgr Daniela Hammoud týmto prehlasujem, že som rigoróznu

prácu na tému: Akustická analýza napätosti samohlások v dialektoch britskej

angličtiny vypracovala samostatne s použitím uvádzanej literatúry.

V Trenčíne, dňa 08.10.2010 ……………………………

podpis

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UNIVERZITA KONŠTANTÍNA FILOZOFA

FILOZOFICKÁ FAKULTA

Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky

Rigorózna práca

Akustická analýza napätosti samohlások v dialektoch britskej angličtiny

Nitra, 2010 Mgr. Daniela Hammoud

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I wish to express my sincere gratitude and many thanks to my tutor and advisor, Štefan

Beňuš who taught me the purpose and a goal of an academic research. He devoted his

time to patient consultations and led me through difficult times of being lost in a maze of

scientific papers and studies. I would like to express my appreciation to his priceless

ideas, never-ending comments and demanding requests which helped me to better

understand the work of a linguist and particularly a phonetician. Always insisting on

perfection he made me learn and study not only linguistic issues but also the issues

concerning any scientific work or research, such as making a hypothesis, methodology,

academic writing, using statistical methods, and many other.

Although I may have not fulfilled all his requirements, I did my best to please my tutor

and to contribute to the linguistic research, and I am grateful that he set me on the right

way to further improvement and progress in the field of scientific linguistic research.

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ABSTRACT

This work examines the British English vowels with respect to the tense/lax feature.

The tenseness as a linguistic term is a matter of some controversy among linguists. There

are disagreements in the literature not only about the definition of tenseness but also

about its implementation in phonetics and phonology of English. In the past years

tenseness has appeared in the phonological system of English and there are many

scholars who adopted tenseness as one of the distinctive features for English vowels.

However, it is difficult to find an appropriate definition of this feature as some correlate it

to the length and others to the muscular tension of the articulators. But the muscular

tension of the articulators is a very broad term and can cover a whole range of other

phonemic features like constriction, tongue root advancement, tongue root retraction,

pharyngealization, etc. The tongue itself involves so many muscles that it is always

difficult to be sure which muscles cause a particular speech movement.

We looked at different vowel categorizations according to different approaches and

gave a review of some of the distinctive phonemic features as used by some phoneticians,

and then we presented different interpretations of tenseness as a vowel feature. Since we

analyzed the vowels in four different varieties of British English, these were described

and we showed some of their typical characteristics. The four varieties were Received

Pronunciation (RP), Scouse (Liverpool accent), Standard Scottish English, and Estuary

English.

The vowel analysis is provided in Chapter 5. The analysis was done using the

PRAAT software. We focused on the formant frequencies and the duration of the vowels,

and we also regarded the position of a vowel in a word as well as its environment. The

analysis compared individual pairs of vowels which fall into the so called tense-lax

opposition and this comparison was applied to all four varieties respectively. The results

showed which of the measured features actually differentiate the short vowels from the

long ones. The measured features included the length of vowels, the first formant

frequency, and the second formant frequency. We evaluated the results using the

statistical methods T-test for comparison of mean values and non-parametric Mann-

Whitney test for unpaired values. The analysis showed that the pairs of vowels which are

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said to be distinct in tenseness were significantly different in length and formant

frequencies. This implies that tenseness as a phonemic feature is a redundant description

because English vowels can be sufficiently differentiated by vowel height or backness,

and length.

ABSTRAKT

Táto práca sa zaoberá samohláskami britskej angličtiny v súvislosti s napätosťou

ako s rozlišujúcim rysom samohlások. Napätosť ako lingvistický termín je predmetom

mnohých rozporov medzi lingvistami. V literatúre je veľa nezrovnalostí nie len pokiaľ

ide o definíciu napätosti, ale aj v jej uplatnení v anglickej fonetike a fonológii.

V uplynulých rokoch sa napätosť objavuje vo fonologickom systéme angličtiny a mnoho

lingvistov používa napätosť ako jeden z rozlišujúcich rysov anglických samohlások.

Avšak nájsť odpovedajúcu definíciu pre tento rys je komplikované, pretože niektorí ho

pripisujú dĺžke samohlásky a iní zas svalovému napätiu artikulačných orgánov. Svalové

napätie artikulačných orgánov je široký pojem a môže pokrývať celú škálu ďalších

fonologických rysov, ako napr. zúženie hltanu, zatiahnutie jazyka koreňa či jeho

posunutie dopredu, pnutie hltanu, atď. Samotný jazyk sa skladá z toľkých svalov, že sa dá

veľmi ťažko určiť, ktorý zo svalov spôsobuje daný pohyb v reči.

V rigoróznej práci sme sa zamerali na niekoľko delení samohlások podľa

rozličných prístupov a podali sme prehľad rozlišujúcich rysov podľa niektorých

fonetikov. Taktiež sme ukázali rôzne pohľady a interpretácie napätosti ako rozlišujúceho

rysu anglických samohlások. Pretože samohlásky boli analyzované v štyroch rôznych

dialektoch angličtiny („Received Pronunciation“ (RP), Scouse (Liverpoolský dialekt),

štandardnú škótsku angličtinu a tzv. „Estuary English“ /dialekt v oblasti povodia rieky

Temži/), tieto sme bližšie opísali a poukázali na niektoré z ich typických vlastností.

Analýza sa nachádza v piatej kapitole práce. Je založená na počítačovom programe

PRAAT. Zamerali sme sa na frekvencie formantov a dĺžku samohlások a takisto sme

brali bo úvahy postavenie samohlásky v slove a jej hláskové okolie. Analýza porovnala

jednotlivé páry samohlások, ktoré spadajú do opozície v napätosti. Túto analýzu sme

aplikovali pre každý pár zvlášť, a to v každom zo zvolených dialektov samostatne.

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Výsledky ukázali, ktoré z meraných hodnôt v skutočnosti rozlišujú jednotlivé samohlásky

daného páru – čiže krátke od dlhých. Výsledky meraní sme vyhodnotili pomocou

štatistickej metódy T-test, ktorá porovnáva priemerné hodnoty dvoch skupín a pomocou

neparametrického testu Mann-Whitney pre nepárové výbery. Analýza ukázala, že

samohláskové páry, ktoré sa líšia napätosťou, sa líšili dĺžkou aj frekvenciami formantov.

To naznačuje, že napätosť ako fonemický rys je redundantným popisom, pretože anglické

samohlásky môžu byť dostačujúco rozlíšené výškou alebo predozadnosťou a dĺžkou.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgment 5

Abstract 6

Abstrakt (v slovenčine) 7

Contents 9

List of figures 12

Introduction 13

1 Distinctive Phonemic Features 17

1.1 Jakobson and Halle's Distinctive Features 19

1.2 Chomsky and Halle's Universal Set 21

1.3 Ladefoged´s Traditional Features 23

1.4 Conclusion 25

2 Vowel Categorization 27

2.1 IPA Tradition, Jones's cardinal vowels 29

2.2 Bell/Sweet tradition 29

2.3 Dependency Phonology 31

2.4 English Vowels 33

2.5 Acoustic Phonetics 38

2.6 Conclusion 46

3 Tense/Lax Feature 47

3.1 Definition of tenseness 47

3.2 Tenseness in World's Languages 49

3.3 Tenseness in English and other Germanic Languages 51

3.4 Conclusion 58

4 Varieties of English 60

4.1 Historical Perspective 61

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4.2 Geographical and Social Distribution 63

4.3 Main Characteristics of RP, Estuary English, Standard

Scottish English, and Scouse 65

4.3.1 RP 65

4.3.2 Estuary English 66

4.3.3 Standard Scottish English 67

4.3.4 Scouse 71

4.4 Conclusion 72

5 Acoustic Analysis of the Tense/Lax Opposition in Vowels of British English

Varieties 73

5.1 Corpus and Methodology 73

5.1.1 Collecting the data 75

5.1.2 Statistical methods 78

5.1.3 T-test 79

5.1.4 Mann-Whitney test 80

6 Results and Discussion 82

6.1 Results of the statistical tests 82

6.2 Evaluation 86

6.3 Tense/lax versus high/low 92

6.4 Tense/lax versus long/short 93

6.5 Influence of Prosody on Vowel Length 95

6.6 Discussion 99

7 Conclusion 103

Appendices: List of appendices: 109

1. Length data for all pairs in all accents 110

2. First Formant Data from the Vowels´ Mid-point 114

3. First Formant Data from the Point of Vowels´ Maximum intensity 118

4. Second Formant Data from the Vowels´ Mid-point 123

5. Second Formant Data from the Point of Vowels´ Maximum intensity 126

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6. Third Formant Data from the Vowels´ Mid-point 130

7. Third Formant Data from the Point of Vowels´ Maximum intensity 134

8. Statistical Analysis for RP 138

9. Statistical Analysis for Scouse 139

10. Statistical Analysis for Scottish English 140

11. Statistical Analysis for Estuary 141

12. Tabulated critical values 142

13. Transcripts of the corpus: Comma gets a cure 143

14. Transcripts of the corpus: The Rainbow Passage 144

References 145

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List of Figures

Figure 1 The Primary Cardinal Vowels 28

Figure 2 Formant graph of English vowels 41

Figure 3 An Example of a Narrow-band Spectrogram 43

Figure 4 An Example of a Wide-band Spectrogram 43

Figure 5 Vowel DistributionBased on the Formant Frequencies 44

Figure 6 RP Vowel Distribution Based on the Frequencies of Formants 45

List of Tables

Table 1 Values for first and second formants for Canadian vowels 41

Table 2 Scottish English Vowels in pre –/r/ environments 69

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INTRODUCTION

Linguists have been trying to create a system of describing all aspects of a language.

Different descriptions and systems are universal or language specific.

Among the aspects of a language are phonetics and phonology. In order to elaborate a

system in phonetics and phonology, linguists have been attempting to give an explicit

description of all meaningful sounds that a human is able to produce in order to express

his/her thoughts. They have been trying to find features that make these meaningful

sounds distinct from each other. These features are often referred to as distinctive

phonemic features. Further in this work we will refer to them as distinctive features.

Chomsky and Halle (1968) presented the universal set of phonetic features which

attempt to cover “every inherent phonetic feature regardless of whether it plays a role in

the phonetics of English” (1968:298). Universal systems of distinctive features face a

question whether a feature that distinguishes sounds in one language is the same as a

feature that characterizes sounds in another. It is possible to avoid this question by

making a set of distinctive features for specific languages separately.

Many phoneticians created their own sets of universal distinctive features. Most of

the features in these systems are the same but there are some features which share the

name but refer to different things by different authors. One of them is the tenseness

feature. We concentrate on the tenseness that characterizes British English vowels. Since

the tenseness can mean more than one thing its definition is not simple and

straightforward. We define the tenseness in Chapter 3 taking into consideration the

different meanings and different usage in phonetics and phonology.

This work tries to answer this fundamental question: is tenseness or the tense/lax

opposition a distinctive phonemic feature for British English vowels?

For years phoneticians have tried to present a universal inventory of vowels based on

distinctive features. It seems as if the original model proposed by Jones in 1917 and later

adopted by the IPA did not give a sufficient description of vowels to some scholars.

With the expansion of acoustic phonetics some researchers claim the need for

implementing the muscular tension as a distinctive feature (apart from other three

features generally accepted by linguists: height, frontness, and lip-shape). The tenseness

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feature should give a vowel an aspect of tenseness providing a binary distinction

[tense/lax]. Some languages clearly make a distinction between tense/lax vowels

manifested by advanced or retracted tongue root respectively [+ATR/-ATR].

Ladefoged examined the tenseness closely and he claimed that the tenseness is a

distinctive feature in some languages, mainly African or Southeast Asian (Ladefoged,

Maddieson 1996). In case of these languages the tenseness is produced with the ATR.

This paper examines whether +ATR/-ATR is a distinctive phonological feature in British

English and specifically in four of its varieties across the British Isles: Received

Pronunciation (RP), Scouse, Standard Scottish English, and Estuary English.

When one looks for tenseness of vowels in reference literature, one gets a very

confusing picture of what is meant by it. Jones (1918[1964]) mentions that some authors

explain ´tense´ vowels as made with tongue muscles relatively tense in contrast to lax

vowels. Statements of this type are vague and do not provide sufficient acceptable

characteristics of the so called “tense vowels”. Jones says that "it is extremely difficult to

determine in case of the opener vowels whether the sensation of 'tenseness' is present or

not" (1964:39-40). Furthermore, a sound like /æ/ is, in the opinion of many phoneticians,

pronounced with a feeling of ´tenseness or contraction´ in the pharyngeal region,

nevertheless it is categorized as lax. Some teachers of phonetics explain tenseness as a

feature related to length (lax vowels are always short, tense vowels can be short or long,

all diphthongs and triphthongs are tense) (Peterson, Barney, 1952). Hosom (2008:16)

says that "a lax vowel can never be a word-final stressed vowel". According to this rule,

/æ/ is lax; however, it is long in duration which opposes the fact that lax vowels are

always short.

Stevens (1998) states that the walls of a vocal tract can be perturbed, which allows us

to create an opposition between tense and lax vowels. In his view "vowels that reside on

the periphery of the quadrilateral represent extreme perturbations from the uniform

shape" – so called tense (1998:294). Vowels characterized by "vocal tract configurations

and acoustic patterns intermediate between these extreme or peripheral vowels and the

central or schwa vowel" are so called lax vowels (1998:295). Nevertheless, he himself

admits some controversy about the tense-lax subject when multiple acoustic correlates of

the tense-lax distinction were viewed.

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Stevens admits that the tense/lax distinction is expressed by different formant

frequencies. We know that F1 shows the height feature (the lower the F1, the higher the

tongue position) and F2 shows the frontness feature (front vowels have higher F2 than

back vowels). But if the tenseness in vowels is manifested by raising or lowering formant

frequencies then the tenseness can be expressed by the vowel height and frontness. “In

the pairs of tense-lax vowels the spectrogram shows difference in length and in

diphthongization. From the spectra it is possible to observe the shifts in F1 and F2 that

occur between the tense and lax vowels. For the lax vowels the formant movement is

toward a more central position. One of the implementation of the tense or lax feature of

the vowel is somewhat delayed relative to implementation of the basic high-low and

front-back features” (Stevens 1998:295). He also mentions that there are some other

articulatory adjustments that may cause the tense-lax distinction but does not further

explain what they are: “Furthermore, articulatory adjustments beyond those that produce

more or less constricted vocal tract shape may be implemented to augment or enhance the

distinction between tense and lax vowels. Some of these articulatory adjustments and

their acoustic correlates are not well understood and will be discussed here only in

general terms” (Stevens 1998:295).

Because there are many disagreements in the literature about the tenseness and its

application in different languages we want to bring the experimental analysis to bear on

the issue of how the tenseness is expressed in English vowels, and specifically in four of

British English varieties. Sometimes the tenseness is correlated to the tongue root

advancement or its retraction, and sometimes it is correlated to the length. On the other

hand, the length itself is a complicated issue in English vowels and phoneticians argue

that the vowel length is not a distinctive feature because the duration of the so called

„long‟ vowels is often shorter than the duration of the so called „short vowels‟. So, the

length can not be regarded as a distinctive phonemic feature. But then we need something

that would differentiate the „long‟ and „short‟ vowels. How would we call the difference

between, for example, /ɪ/ and /iː /? Is this the reason to implement the tenseness in

English vowels? Is it a substitution for the missing length feature? Are we justified to

exclude the length from the English vowels and call it tenseness – and then teach students

that tense vowels are actually „long‟ and lax vowels are „short‟?

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We are going to investigate the English vowels in terms of their formant frequencies

and duration and try to answer these questions by evaluating the results of the analysis.

Looking at the question whether the tenseness in English is a distinctive phonemic

feature for vowels tested the hypothesis that the tenseness in English vowels is an

articulatory or phonetic attribute that does not differentiate the quality of a vowel in any

other way than it can be distinguished by other characteristics. Since the majority of pro-

tenseness oriented authors correlate the tenseness to the length, in this work we presume

that long vowels are tense (excluding /æ/ because this is claimed to be lax by other

conditioning rules). In the analysis we concentrated on the question: what distinguishes

the tense/lax pairs: is it length, formant frequencies, or perhaps both or none of them? We

also compared the tense/lax pairs within different varieties of British English and tested if

the same answer is applicable to other accents.

The analysis showed that the pairs of vowels which are said to be distinct in tenseness

were significantly different in length and formant frequencies. This implies that tenseness

as a phonemic feature is a redundant description because English vowels can be

sufficiently differentiated by vowel height or backness, and length. All four speakers

made the distinction between the tense/lax pairs by the change in the tongue height or

backness and all vowel pairs except one were also significantly different in length.

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1 Distinctive Phonemic Features

This chapter deals with the issue of phonemic features. First we will give a definition

of what phonemic means and also present main differences between phonetic and

phonemic descriptions. We will provide different sets of distinctive phonemic features as

described by various linguists and give a short presentation of three different approaches

that perhaps mostly influenced directions in phonological research. These approaches

include Jakobson and Halle‟s distinctive features, Chomsky and Halle‟s universal set, and

Ladefoged´s traditional features.

We will have a closer look at the phonemic feature called tenseness and its

articulatory or acoustic correlations. We will see how tenseness is characterized by

different authors. A detailed description of this feature will be given in Chapter 3 which

is devoted specifically to tenseness.

Some linguists emphasize a close relationship between phonetics and phonology. We

know that one can not be understood without the other, yet they are so different that we

must regard them separately. When trying to describe a linguistic matter, one should

make it clear what approach he/she takes. Similarly, a phenomenon described in a certain

way might be perfectly comprehensive and logical in one aspect while completely

irrelevant in the other. When the linguists found out that a phoneme – originally

unbreakable unit of phonology – could be actually decomposed and split into many

component features, they started to work on inventories of distinctive features. A

distinctive feature is in fact a minimal unit at the phonological level.

Distinctive features form a foundation stone of any phoneme system. The issue over

which linguists argue is what exactly a group of distinctive features should consist of.

The goal is to create a set of features which are sufficient for describing sounds occurring

in the world's languages. This point should be kept in mind when looking into different

systems of phonemic features provided by various authors – that their systems should be

applicable to all the world's languages. In order to create such a system the author should

have knowledge of the world‟s languages; however we can never be sure whether a

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particular set of features covers all existing languages. Most of the sets of distinctive

features do consider a huge scale of the world's sounds.

When referring to distinctive features in this paper we mean phonemic features.

Often in the literature the terms phonemics and phonology are used interchangeably. The

phonemics is a synonym for phonology.

Phonological research focuses on three topics:

The representation of lexical contrasts between words

The constraints on the sounds in lexical items in a given language

The description of the relations between the underlying lexical items and the

observable phonetic output (Ladefoged 2004).

On the other hand, phonetics studies concrete articulatory, acoustic, and auditory

characteristics of all the possible sounds of all languages (Bussmann, Trauth and Kazzazi

1996). Remembering the distinction between phonetics and phonology, we can now say

that while phonetics deals with the more or less universal characteristics of sounds (in

articulatory, acoustic, or auditory terms), phonology rather focuses on the particular way

in which the sound systems of different languages are organized. The phonological rules,

constraints, the sound patterns of a given linguistic system are then the domain of

phonology. Simplifying, we can say that phonetics deals with actual sounds and their

characteristics, while phonology is concerned with matters of a more abstract nature as it

analyses phonemes. Phonological and phonemic refer to the same things.

According to Anderson (1985) for some linguists phonemic (phonological)

representations should contain only distinctive (nonredundant) material. The fundamental

difference between phonetics and phonology lies in the representations of forms. While

phonological representations of forms eliminate predictable properties and reduce the

forms to the minimum specification, phonetics gives exact description with all varieties

that may fall within one phonemic representation. The question is how much information

is to be considered nonredundant because strictly eliminated properties may bring further

consequences (defining additional rules or constraints) (Anderson 1985). Some linguists

claim the importance of phonological representations to be compatible with full phonetic

interpretability. That would definitely include redundant features. It is rather questionable

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whether there should be any kind of a synthesis of phonetics and phonology. These two

different fields can be studied separately. Nevertheless, some researchers attempt to find

theories that would satisfy both requirements for a full specification (in order to

guarantee its interpretability in phonetics) and avoidance of redundancy.

In 1989 Stevens and his colleagues (1989) presented the Quantal theory of speech

which says that the universal set of features is not arbitrary. It can be deduced from the

interplay of the articulatory parameters and their acoustic effects (Clements, Ridouane

2006). In this theory every distinctive feature corresponds to an articulatory-acoustic

coupling within which the auditory system is insensitive to small articulatory movements.

Quantal theory offers a basis for redefining features in both articulatory and acoustic

terms but so far it has not been applied to all vowel features, for example the height

feature.

1.1 Jakobson and Halle’s Distinctive Features

Jakobson, Fant, and Halle (1952) were mainly concerned with the issue of the

lexical contrasts between words and how we represent them (Ladefoged 2004). Their aim

was to report the acoustic correlates of the minimal set of features required to distinguish

the lexical contrasts found in the languages of the world. They launched a tradition

according to which features are defined mainly in the acoustic domain. As opposed to

this tradition, Chomsky and Halle (1968) initiated another tradition in which features are

defined primarily in articulatory terms. We are going to give a short presentation of both

systems and that of Ladefoged for comparison.

Jakobson and Halle said that “the inherent distinctive features which we detect in the

languages of the world and which underlie their entire lexical and morphological stock

amount to 12 binary oppositions:

Vocalic / non-vocalic

Consonantal / non-consonantal

Interrupted / continuant

Checked / unchecked

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Strident / mellow

Voiced / unvoiced

Compact / diffuse

Grave / acute

Flat / plain

Sharp / plain

Tense / lax

Nasal / oral”

(Jakobson et al 1952:40).

Jakobson, Fant & Halle wanted to develop a minimal classificatory system, so it is

not surprising that other systems would include more phonemic features such as those

describing glottal stricture which in Jakobson‟s system are covered by the feature

[+checked] (Ladefoged 2004). As opposed to Jakobson, Fant and Halle, Chomsky and

Halle were interested in explaining observed sound patterns by reference to phonological

features in a speaker‟s mind (Ladefoged 2004). Chomsky and Halle proposed a set of

features that had both articulatory and acoustic properties that the speaker knows about

without preference to any of these aspects.

Jakobson, Fant & Halle thought that the acoustic aspects of features were more

important because “we speak in order to be heard in order to be understood” (Jakobson,

Fant and Halle 1952:13) and the descriptions are considered good if they fit with what

was being understood (Ladefoged 2004). Jakobson thinks that the articulation process can

be understood correctly only if the acoustic results are taken into account; and not only

the acoustic results themselves but also their effect on the listener's perception (Jessen

1998).

Let us have a look at the feature tense/lax. The [+tense] specification characterizes

sounds which are articulated with a greater effort. Acoustically they evince a greater

spread of energy in the spectrum and have a longer duration, while articulatorily they

require a greater deformation of the vocal tract. This feature is applicable to both vowels

and consonants. Voiceless consonants will be specified as [+tense], while voiced ones

will be described as [-tense].

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1.2 Chomsky and Halle's Universal Set

Some of the distinctions proposed by Jakobson and Halle can be recognized in the

deeply elaborated system of features by Chomsky and Halle presented in The Sound

Pattern of English (1968). Their aim was to present the universal set of phonetic features

that would cover every inherent phonetic feature regardless of whether it is significant in

the phonetics of English (Chomsky and Halle 1968). They consider the articulatory

features under the following headings:

1. Major class features: a) Sonorant

b) Vocalic

c) Consonantal

2. Cavity features: a) Coronal

b) Anterior

c) Tongue-body features: 1) High

2) Low

3) Back

d) Round

e) Distributed

f) Covered

g) Glottal constrictions

h) Secondary apertures: 1) Nasal

2) Lateral

3. Manner of articulation features: a) Continuant

b) Release features: instantaneous and delayed: 1) Primary

2) Secondary

c) Supplementary movements: 1) Suction: Velaric suction

2) Implosion

3)Pressure:Velaric pressure

d) Ejectives

e) Tense

4. Source features: a) Heightened subglottal pressure

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b) Voiced

c) Strident

5. Prosodic features: a) Stress

b) Pitch: High

Low

Elevated

Rising

Falling

Concave

c) Length

(Chomsky and Halle 1968)

Chomsky and Halle also recognize spontaneous vocal cord vibration prior to subject's

speaking. This vibration happens in the neutral position of the vocal tract (i.e. the velum

is raised, and the air flow through the nose is shut off) which differs from the

configuration of the vocal tract during quiet breathing. "During quiet breathing, the vocal

cords must be widely spread apart since practically no sound is emitted. On the other

hand, there is good reason to believe that prior to speaking the subject normally narrows

his glottis and positions his vocal cords so that in the neutral position they will vibrate

spontaneously in response to the normal, unimpeded air flow" (Chomsky and Halle

1968:300).

Chomsky and Halle‟s tense/lax feature, found under the manner of articulation

features, parallels the feature long/short in vowels and voiceless/voiced in consonants. It

describes the higher or lower muscular articulatory effort required by uttering of the

respective sound. So far we can say that Jakobson, Fant & Halle‟s tense feature is very

similar to that of Chomsky and Halle‟s.

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1.3 Ladefoged´s Traditional Features

Ladefoged was very much aware of the fact that in order to develop an adequate

phonological theory, one must know much more about “both the surface of the phonetic

events and the rules governing the patterns of sounds which occur in a great many

languages” (Ladefoged 1971:1). Ladefoged aimed at developing a set of features which

would be appropriate for phonological descriptions using a traditional approach based on

that of Pike (1943) and Abercrombie (1967) (Ladefoged 2004).

Four separate processes form a speech: the airstream process (the act of moving a

body of air), the phonation process (actions of the vocal cords), the oro-nasal process

(states of the velum), and the articulatory process (actions of the tongue and lips)

(Ladefoged 2004). The articulatory process is seen as the most complex and is divided

into many sub-processes first in terms of places and then in terms of manners of

articulation. In binary oppositions twenty features are used excluding the tone features.

Ladefoged (2004) agrees with Jakobson (1962) that the “binary principle is a major factor

in human communication” (Ladefoged 2004:91).

The summary of the proposed feature system as outlined in the Preliminaries to

Linguistic Phonetics (Ladefoged 2004:92):

Name of feature Max. number of

systematic

phonemic

contrasts

Arbitrarily specified terms for use at systematic phonetic

level

Consonantal 2 Not applicable at the phonetic level

Glottal stricture 3 Glottal stop

Creak

Creaky voice

Tense (stiff) voice

Lax (slack) voice

Murmur

Breathy voice

Voiceless

Voice onset 3 Voicing throughout articulation

Voicing during part of articulation

Voicing starts immediately after

Voicing starts considerably later

Fortis-lenis 2 Normal respiratory activity

Heightened subglottal pressure

24

Glottalicness 3 Ejective (glottis moving air upward)

Pulmonic

Implosive (glottis moving air downward)

Velaric suction 2 No click

Click (ingressive velaric airstream)

Nasality (2) Oral (velic closure)

Nasal (velic opening)

Prenasality 2 Not prenasalized

Prenasalized

Articulatory place 6 Bilabial

Labiodental

Dental

Alveolar

Postalveolar

Palatal

Velar

Uvular

Pharyngeal

Glottal

Labial-velar

Labial-alveolar

Gravity 2 Higher pitch spectral energy

Lower pitch spectral energy

Apicality 2 Tip of tongue

Blade of tongue

Stop 2 No complete articulatory closure

Stop closure

Fricative 2 No turbulence

Maximum turbulence

Vibration 2 No vibration

Vibration (trilled)

Rate (3) Rapid

Normal

Long

Extra long

Laterality 2 Central

Lateral

Sibilance 2 No high pitch turbulence

High pitch turbulence

Sonorant 2 Less intensity in the formants

Greater acoustic energy in the formants

Rounding 2 Lips spread

Lips neutral

Lips closely rounded

Height 4 Low

Mid-low

Mid-high

High

Backness (2) No tongue retraction

Body of tongue retracted

Tension 2 Tongue hollowed

No intrinsic tongue contraction

Tongue bunched

Syllabicity 2 Nonsyllabic

Syllabic (correlates undefined)

25

Accent (2) Not stressed

Maximum stress pulse

Tone (as in Wang

1967)

Contour

High

Central

Mid

Raising

Falling

Convex

Cadence 2 No intonation change

Falling intonation

Endglide 2 No intonation change

Final rising intonation

As can be seen from the table, indeed, most of the features are binary although they

are so because that was the intention of the author. For example, the last two prosody

features could be put together since they both refer to the same feature – intonation.

Ladefoged himself admits that there are features used in a non-binary way, especially the

place of articulation. He suggests that the place of articulation might be regarded as an

independent item (Ladefoged 2004). Linguists can argue about many noted features as to

whether they should have their own phonetic properties or whether they could be defined

in terms of already existing features. In any case, should any scholar insist on using

binary features, each opposition is possible to be marked as binary, e.g. bilabial –

nonbilabial, dental – nondental, etc. Another option is keeping the convention that states

that a value marked [+] is present while its opposition is marked [-]. In this case it is not

necessary to mention the non-presence of a value because the plus mark implies a minus

value for all other values (Ladefoged 2004).

1.4 Conclusion

Feature systems as proposed by Jakobson, Fant and Halle or Chomsky and Halle

represent a turning point in the development of phonological theory in the 20th

century.

The features used by Chomsky and Halle were defined primarily in articulatory terms and

not in acoustic ones as they were in the model of Jakobson, Fant and Halle. Since then

the features have been reinterpreted and we can see tendencies towards unifying or

synthesizing the articulatory and acoustic parameters.

26

One of the theories based on the interactions between the articulatory parameters and

their acoustic effects is the quantal theory of speech developed by Stevens and his

colleagues in 1989. This theory is well supported by experiments but not for all

distinctive features as we know them from previous works. For example, the vowel

feature frontness can be well defined in quantal terms (based on the experiments), but

other vowel features: height and lip rounding have not proved to be quantal features. The

aim is to develop a system of nongradient definitions for vowel features. Quantal theory

gives many suggestions for further research in the field of distinctive phonemic features.

The reason why we present different sets of phonemic features is to show that the

tenseness is regarded as a distinctive feature and that it is meant for both vowels and

consonants. But while in the Sound Pattern of English (1968) tense correlates to the

feature “long”, later works present tenseness as related to other features like e.g. the

advanced tongue root, the mode of voice, or the tongue height. Yet, in some languages

the ATR feature must be kept distinct from the tenseness (in terms of the vocal tract

shape) because they refer to two different phonemic features. The tenseness should stand

for the tongue height, while the ATR distinction is one of total pharynx size. More about

tenseness is given in Chapter 3.

Many authors agree that tenseness as a term is unclear and prefer to avoid it or rather

substitute it with a more appropriate term. For example Lindau (1975) suggests that tense

can be replaced by „peripheral‟ as long as it is understood to include a duration

difference.

In our analysis we want to see if there is a need for a feature like tense for English

vowels or whether they can be distinctively described by other parameters: vowel height,

frontness, and duration.

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2 Vowel Categorization

This chapter shows vowel categorizations from different perspectives. We will look at

different approaches as described by various linguistic schools. We will also show what

distinctive features different authors apply, and what role tenseness plays in the

categorization of vowels. After providing short descriptions of some of the systems of

vowel categorization, we will concentrate on the English vowels and different

possibilities of referring to individual vowel sounds. A brief account of acoustic

phonetics follows where the main principles of this rather new field of linguistics are

presented.

The main classification of sounds adopted by linguists worldwide distinguishes

between vowels and consonants. Vowels are described as sounds that can be pronounced

alone (Ladefoged, Maddieson 1996) as opposed to consonants which must be sounded

with a vowel (Ladefoged, Maddieson 1996). This theory is supported by the fact that in

many languages vowels can form a word by themselves while consonants can not. This

view is merely phonological. If we want to include the phonetic aspect, the definition of

vowels should involve features that describe strictures in the vocal tract. Thus, vowels

can be “defined by features that ensure that there are no major strictures in the vocal tract

and that they are syllabic” (Ladefoged, Maddieson 1996:281). This categorization was

first introduced by Pike (1943) and later adopted by Chomsky and Halle (1968). This

definition is not purely phonetic since it includes a feature of being „syllabic‟ which is

phonological. Syllabicity can not be described in articulatory terms because it is viewed

as a neurophysiological intuitive unit necessary in the production of utterances

(Ladefoged, Maddieson 1996). The reason why the syllabicity is included in the

definition is to make a clear distinction between vowels and semi-vowels which are

generally classified as consonants. Semi-vowels are not syllabic. This is one of the

possible definitions of vowels and that includes both phonetic and phonological

differences. It is possible to define vowels in purely phonetic terms but then such a

definition should include the phonetic difference between vowels and semi-vowels.

28

Let us now move on to the classification of vowels. In 1917, Daniel Jones proposed a

model which was based on three major dimensions of vowel quality: height, backness,

and rounding. He arranged the primary Cardinal Vowels in terms of these dimensions

within the space described by them. The result is a straight-forward display of vowels

from which one can see the approximate position of the articulation. Originally, the

position of a vowel meant to show its actual articulatory characteristics. The place of a

particular vowel in the chart corresponds to the position of the tongue in the oral cavity.

This traditional articulatory layout has been used ever since although we know that the

positions do not exactly indicate the shape of the vocal tract, especially the tongue

position.

Figure 1: The primary Cardinal Vowels displayed in terms of the major dimensions of vowel quality.

The chart may look in slightly different ways depending on what specific phonetic

feature one follows. For example, the position of the tongue can be determined in a

number of various ways. We can consider the highest point of the tongue or we can

consider the size of the constriction, the distance of the highest point of the tongue from

the roof of the mouth, etc.

29

The resulting plot of vowels may show different spatial distribution, e.g. vowels may

appear to be more or less back or front, high or low, the differences between them might

be more or less apparent.

2.1 The IPA Tradition

The International Phonetics Association gained worldwide acknowledgment in

creating a descriptive scheme of world‟s vowels. The basic idea on which its members

agreed is to make use of the principal chart of „Cardinal Vowels‟ put forward by Daniel

Jones (1918). The IPA has been loyal to Jones‟s principal parameters such as height,

backness, and rounding. The most extensive of the three parameters is the height.

Typically, four divisions are situated on the height axis: high, mid-high, mid-low, and

low, although the range of possibilities is much bigger and could be needed for other

languages than English (Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996: 289-290) quote a study of the

Bavarian dialect spoken in Amstetten (Austria) by Traunmüller (1982)). The backness

axis provides only three main parts: front, central, and back. The least attention has been

given to the rounding feature. The IPA suggests rounding to be a binary feature, so a

vowel is either rounded or not. If there is further need for expressing untypical „over-„ or

„under-„ rounding then the IPA offers a diacritic mark. However, there are languages like

Swedish or Norwegian whose vowel inventories have three vowels which are all high and

all front but with different lip gestures (Durand 2005).

If we consider the fact that all three dimensions (height, backness, and rounding) are

combined, we get a relatively great amount of possibilities of arranging vowels into the

3-dimensional space.

2.2 The Bell/Sweet tradition

Some linguists (Chomsky and Halle 1968) suggested that there should be only three

levels of height. While the Jones‟s proposal gives four levels, the IPA (1989)

representing the full set of vowel symbols implies that there are up to seven levels

(Ladefoged, Maddieson 1996).

30

Chomsky and Halle (1968) followed the Bell‟s (1867) and Sweet‟s (1877) description

of the vowel space which included two main dimensions: height and backness. Both

dimensions have three divisions. For the height they are high, mid, low and for the

backness they are front, central, and back. To these two dimensions lip-shape can be

added (Durand 2005). Because many languages of the world use vowels which can not be

described by these parameters, some linguists (following the Bell/Sweet tradition)

“recognize other dimensions which they use for representing what we regard as simply

variations in Height” (Ladefoged, Maddieson 1996: 289).

So, Sweet (1877) in his organization of the vowels included the narrow/wide

parameters. Using this feature allowed him to distinguish 36 vowel qualities. About the

narrow/wide parameters Sweet says that they “depend on the shape of the tongue. In

forming narrow sounds there is a feeling of tenseness in that part of the tongue where the

sound is formed, the surface of the tongue being made more convex than its natural

„wide‟ shape, in which it is relaxed and flattened” (1877: 8-9). This is probably the first

description of tenseness in literature. The narrow/wide parameter was one of the

distinctive phonemic features with regards to the world vowel inventory.

We can see that the notion of tenseness dates back to at least as early as 1877 and has

become a part of the vowel features systems. We will concentrate on the British English

vowels and see if the tenseness is a relevant phonemic feature for them.

As mentioned earlier, Bell/Sweet theory of three divisions in the height was followed

by other linguists. However, there are scholars who consider three divisions as

insufficient and they suggest having more height degrees or implement further

characteristics enabling more vowel categories. Jakobson, Fant and Halle (1952) tried to

express the opposition between four or more degrees of height in terms of other features

including tense/lax (Durand 2005). So, basically we can say that tense/lax in this sense is

just a variant term for the height feature.

Later, Chomsky and Halle (1968) proposed other contrastive binary features in

addition to the tense/lax opposition. The tenseness phenomenon has been accepted by

many scholars, especially in the American continent as well as those strongly influenced

by Chomsky. Since then it has had many different definitions. It has been understood by

many different ways. There are at least three different looks at the tenseness. Some

31

authors understand it as muscular tension of articulators, some regard tenseness as a

correlation to the position of the tongue root, and others correlate tenseness to the length.

Different interpretations of the tenseness are given in more details in Chapter 3. Here is

one of the definitions originally put forward by Jakobson, Fant and Halle:

“In contradistinction to the lax phonemes the corresponding tense phonemes display a

longer sound interval and a larger energy (defined as the area under the envelope of the

sound intensity curve)… In a tense vowel the sum of the deviation of its formants from

the neutral position is greater than that of the corresponding lax vowel.” (1952:36). The

definition then goes on describing the production of tense and lax phonemes:

“Tense phonemes are articulated with greater distinctiveness and pressure than the

corresponding lax phonemes. The muscular strain affects the tongue, the walls of the

vocal tract and the glottis. The higher tension is associated with greater deformation of

the entire vocal tract from its neutral position. This is in agreement with the fact that

tense phonemes have a longer duration than their lax counterparts. The acoustic effects

due to the greater and less rigidity of the walls remain open to question.” (1952:38)

This definition is quite broad and does not imply whether the tenseness is to be

considered a distinctive phonemic feature or just a variation of individual speech

production. Also, the acoustic effect is put into question. But the acoustic effect is an

essential part of defining phonemic features and again the question comes at hand: do we

need the tense/lax opposition for vowels in English? Does the tense/lax opposition

distinct English vowels in a characteristic which can not be described in terms of the

height degrees, backness, and/or length?

2.3 Dependency Phonology

I would like to mention very briefly the phonological model proposed by Anderson

and Jones. The main concept of the model is that the vowel system is structured around

three basic components (the term ´component´ is substituted by the term ´element´ in the

Government Phonology; both Government Phonology and Particle Phonology are

different developments around the Dependency Phonology (Durand 2005). The three

basic components are A, I, and U. The symbols stand for the components, not the sounds.

32

Each sound is then represented by either single components or their combination. Thus a

simple vowel inventory consisting of 5 vowels /i e a o u / will be marked simply as

follows:

/i/ = {I}, /e/ = {I,A}, /a/ = {A}, /o/ = {A,U}, /u/ = {U}.

In order to describe more sounds, the dependency phonology uses more

combinations with the three basic elements plus other marks like semi-colon or colon.

These mean various degrees of the component presence. Also the order of each

component has its specific meaning. While {I,A} means an equal representation of

elements I and A (separated by comma), {I;A} means that the component on the left

dominates the other component (separated by semi-colon). This means that /o/ =

{A,U}but /ɔ/ = {A;U}.

For all the world‟s languages the system of three components is not sufficient.

Anderson and Ewen (1987) use the symbol @ which could be described as schwa in the

IPA. Actually, the symbol @ is another component which adds the feature of centrality to

the sound. Therefore, a combination like {A,@} represents /ʌ/, {I,@} represents /ɪ/, and

{U,@} represents /ʊ/. The three basic components define only the resonance

characteristics of a segment and must be supplemented by components of a different sort

or gestures which specify manner and major-class properties (Anderson & Durand 1987).

With regards to the tenseness, the peripherality feature (as some researchers correlate the

tenseness to the peripherality) is not at all the same as the feature lax (or [-tense]).

Phonetically, the use of @ opposes centralized vowel to peripheral vowels. If therefore

we combine @ and A, we obtain a vowel corresponding to IPA /ɒ/ and not the sound /æ/

(ant) assumed to be the lax equivalent of /a: / (aunt) in RP, for example. Anderson and

Ewen (1987) argue that primitive for ATR-ness is also required in view of the many

systems which oppose two classes of vowels in terms the tongue root retraction. But this

feature must be not confused with the tenseness as we will show in Chapter 3.

The dependency phonology manages the English vowels without a specific tenseness

feature. Whether the theory is applicable to all other world‟s systems is not our aim to

research.

A possible classification of English vowels in dependency representations may look

as follows:

33

(a) Long (tense) monophthongs: represented by a combination of the main primitives and

the schwa symbol:

/i: / = {I}, /a: /= {A}, /o: / = {A, U}, /u: / = {U}, / ɜː/ = {@}

(b) Short (lax) monophthongs: represented also by a combination of the main primitives

and the schwa symbol:

/I/ = {I, @}, /e/ = {I; A}, / æ / = {A; I}, / ɒ / = {A, U}, / ʊ / = {U, @}, / ʌ / = {A, @}

As can be seen there is no distinction in the representation of /o: / and / ɒ / as they are

both represented by {A, U}. This implies that there is not a phonemic difference between

the sounds other than length. It does not suggest any difference in the vowel height or

backness. /i: / and /I/ are differentiated by the schwa element, which suggests that the two

sounds differ in the vowel height or that /I/ is more central and lower than /i: /. Similarly,

/u: / and /ʊ / are differentiated by the schwa element, which implies that the sound

holding it is more central and (in this case) lower than /u:/.

2.4 English Vowels

The English vowel system is an amazing challenge for linguists. It provides an

enormous number of issues to deal with. Scholars compete in creating the most detailed

system, each based on different attributes. The result is a maze of systems in which we

must find our way through studying the different attributes of the systems´ principles. In

the end, all phoneticians use the IPA transcription to explain their point and to describe

their sounds. If we consider the graphical representation of vowels, we get to a very small

number of graphemes used in very many languages. These are "A E I O U, and Y". Many

languages use just these five or six letters to represent their vowel sounds in a way that

one grapheme stands for one sound. The individual qualities of the sounds may differ

from language to language, though.

If one asks a very simple question: how many vowel sounds are recognized in English

– one can obtain a very complex answer. Nevertheless, most textbooks give a total

number of 20 vowel sounds, including diphthongs. It is important and essential to say that

this number refers to one specific variety called interchangeably RP, BBC English, or the

Queen's English. Other varieties of English may use only 10 distinct vowels (some forms

34

of Scottish English), or even 21 (some old-fashioned British English speakers)

(Ladefoged 2001). Somewhere in-between lies General American (later referred to as

GA), some sources provide 16 distinctive vowels, other 14, or 15 (Ladefoged 2001). This

diversity in the vowel inventory is caused by the constant changes of the language, which

may happen only in some places, or among some group of people, but may not happen

everywhere. Historical changes of vowels include splits and mergers. More about

geographical varieties is given in chapter 4.

From this point on, we will deal with our issues with respect to British English only.

Now, the question is how many vowel sounds there are in British English. Having

suggested the answer twenty, the following task is to identify them. This can be done in

several different ways. For example, by using the Jones's vowel chart, the symbols in the

chart can be substituted by a set of English meaningful words differing only in the vowel

sound. Thus, Ladefoged (2001) gives a set of words in the following consonantal

contexts:

b_d b_t h_d k_t IPA symbol

bead beat heed iː bid bit hid kit ɪ bayed bait hayed Kate eɪ bed bet head ɛ bad bat had cat æ bard Bart hard cart ɑː bod(y) bot(tom) hod cot ɒ bawd bouɡht hawed cauɡht ɔː bud(dhist) hood ʊ bode boat hoed coat əʊ booed boot who'd coot uː bud but Hudd cut ʌ bird Bert heard curt ɜː bide bite hide kite aɪ bowed bout howd(y| aʊ Boyd (a)hoy quoit ɔɪ Ladefoged (2001)

For four diphthongs ending in the schwa sound Ladefoged gives different sets, resulting

from the fact that these words must end in letter 'r'. The starting consonants are b_, p_,

h_, and k_:

35

beer peer here ɪə bare pear hair care eə byre pyre hire aə boor poor ʊə

It is basically these last four diphthongs that make the difference between British

English and GA. For an unknown reason, in the history of British English it became

fashionable to change the r sound into a vowel, when it appeared at the end of a word or

before another consonant (Ladefoged 2001). It is interesting to notice that it did not affect

the or sound. So, the word more rhymes with maw. Some old-fashioned speakers,

though, apply the above mentioned change to or as well, which results in one more

vowel, or rather a diphthong: ɔə. Words like 'more' and 'lore' would not rhyme with

maw and law but they would sound as /mɔːə/, and /lɔːə/. However, this phenomenon

occurs rarely nowadays and it becomes more and more difficult to find any speakers who

would apply this change.

Contemporary trend in some forms of a very posh Queen's English used in the

aristocratic class is monophthongization of triphthongs like in case of aʊr. The schwa

sound does not appear at the end of ʊr, and aʊ is smoothed in one sound a: so, words

like flower, tower, and power become /flaː/, /taː/, and /pa: / respectively.

These are only some illustrations of changing pronunciation. Other changes are

observable in all varieties of a language. This fact makes it difficult for linguists to keep

the phonetic transcription stable and unique avoiding ambiguities. For example the IPA

symbol aː can be found in words like car, father in RP, but in GA we can hear it in

words like Don or doctor where RP would have the symbol ɒ.

In order to avoid such problems we can use another very straight-forward acoustic

description of British English vowels provided by Wells (1982). He formed what he calls

the Standard Lexical Sets. Wells described 24 lexical sets which have been used ever

since for identifying English vowel phonemes regardless of how they may be pronounced

in different varieties of English. These sets are written in capital letters when representing

a sound. The list includes:

36

Set Examples IPA symbol

KIT (ship, rip, dim) ɪ

DRESS (step, egg, stem) ɛ

TRAP (bad, cap, ham) æ

LOT (stop, rob, swan) ɒ

STRUT (cub, rub, hum) ʌ

FOOT (full, look, could) ʊ

BATH (staff, clasp, dance) aː

CLOTH (cough, long, gone) ɒ

NURSE (hurt, term, work) ɜː

FLEECE (seed, key, seize) iː

FACE (weight, rein, steak) eɪ

PALM (calm, bra, father) aː

THOUGHT (taut, hawk, broad) ɔː

GOAT (soap, soul, home) əʊ

GOOSE (who, group, few) uː

PRICE (ripe, tribe, aisle) aɪ

CHOICE (boy, void, coin) ɔɪ

MOUTH (pouch, noun, crowd) aʊ

NEAR (beer, pier, fierce) ɪə

SQUARE (care, air, wear) eə

START (far, sharp, farm) aː

NORTH (war, storm, for) ɔː

FORCE (floor, coarse, ore) ɔː

CURE (poor, tour, fury) ʊə

HAPPY (silly, Tony, merry) ɪ

LETTER (beggar, martyr, visor) ə

COMMA (China, sofa, about) ə

INTO (influence, situation, bivouac) ə

The Standard Lexical Sets allow us to compare the ways in which the vowels of each

lexical set differ in different variations of English. They are always at hand for linguists

when they talk about vowel sets which share common derivations. The sets provide

linguists with a very efficient way to describe the on-going changes in varieties of

English. For instance, sure can be pronounced in a number of different ways and some

37

time ago it used to be transcribed as /ʃʊə/. In some dialects its pronunciation is /ʃɔː/ and

this has become so spread that in modern textbooks its pronunciation is given as /ʃɔː/.

Similarly, this acoustic characteristic is now observed in words like poor.

Generally speaking, we can say that the ongoing change in RP is the CURE-FORCE

merger. The sound /ʊə/ is being replaced by /ɔː/.

In the analysis of different British accents we will also use Wells‟s sets in order to

look at the similarities and differences between them.

Quite a different story is the articulatory description of vowels. It is based on the

position and changes of articulators. The more we know about it, the more we try to find

out. Many detailed descriptions are provided in reference literature. Scientists study the

changes in the pharynx, vocal cords, individual tongue muscles, and different parts of the

tongue – its tip, body, and root. This helps us to better understand such a complicated and

complex process as speech production.

An issue which should not be forgotten, though, is that not all speakers employ the

same strategies to achieve the same acoustic effect. It is evident that the same acoustic

qualities can be reached by more different ways of articulation. The strategies may vary

from speaker to speaker and the result is the same.

In the field of articulatory phonetics there is still much research to be done as we can

assume that a person makes use of only a small portion of all available combinations of

our articulators‟ movements.

2.5 Acoustic Phonetics

The development of acoustic phonetics has brought new possibilities for the sound

investigation. Modern technologies, digital laboratory equipment, electromagnetic

apparatuses, and speech analysis software enable the linguists to use the cutting edge

devices for investigating different theories and proving them either right or wrong. Since

the development of the acoustic phonetics the descriptions of sounds have ceased to be

limited to terms of the articulators‟ positions. The study of waveforms, frequencies, and

38

amplitudes has made it possible to describe the sounds in terms of physical values thus

bringing an exact and explicit attributes to the science of phonetics.

In order to give a brief account of acoustic phonetics we will first explain some basic

terminology from acoustic phonetics. A sound is created when some kind of a movement

happens. The movement causes a disturbance in the surrounding air. Small displacements

of the air particles move from the source of the sound and when they reach a listener‟s

ear they cause the eardrum to move, which results in the perception of a sound. This is

because the air particles cause variations in air pressure. But not all variations in air

pressure are perceived as sounds. If the changes in air pressure are small we can feel the

disturbance of the air but we can not hear a sound. Only very rapid fluctuations of air

pressure affect the ear in a way that a sound is perceived. Variations in air pressure are

represented by waves. One of the simplest kinds of a regular variation in air pressure is a

sine wave. For example a pure tone has a wave with the shape of a sine wave.

When a wave form repeats itself in a number of times each complete repetition is

called a cycle. One of the important properties of a sound is how many complete cycles

the wave performs in a specific time. This value is called frequency. So, frequency is the

number of complete cycles in a second. In older literature the unit of frequency is often

found as cps. (cycles per second) but nowadays we use the Hertz unit (Hz).

In phonetics we usually do not deal with pure tones (represented by sine waves). The

sounds forming speech are represented by complex waves. In order to retrieve the

information we need it is convenient to decompose such a complex wave in individual

sine waves which compose the complex wave. This can be done by Fourier analysis

(named after a mathematician who invented the method). One of the individual sine

waves in a complex wave is called a frequency component.

With regards to a complex wave we also speak about a fundamental frequency. This

is the frequency of repetition of a complex wave. It is important to note that not all

complex waves have a fundamental frequency. It is only a property of a repetitive

complex wave. If a wave is not repetitive it does not have a fundamental frequency.

Phoneticians are mainly interested in the acoustic resonance of the vocal tract, more

precisely in the resonance frequencies. Resonance frequencies are those at which the

system oscillates with larger amplitudes than at other frequencies. In other words, when a

39

wave has a non-repetitive form the most important frequency component is the wave with

the largest amplitude. It is called a formant frequency.

We mentioned that a sound is caused by changes in the air pressure. This change in

air pressure is another property of sound called amplitude. Amplitude is the increase (or

decrease) of air pressure at a given point. Often we do not want the amplitude at a given

point but rather the amplitude of a complex wave. In that case it is useful to work with so

called r.m.s. amplitude which is a form of average of the amplitude.

There are three main auditory distinctions of a sound. Sounds can differ in loudness,

pitch, and quality.

Loudness is associated with r.m.s. amplitude. A sound is interpreted as loud when the

source of sound makes a large movement. This causes a large movement of the air

particles (or large fluctuations of air pressure).

Pitch is an auditory quality associated with the fundamental frequency. We perceive

sounds as high or low and this is the auditory characteristics of a pitch. For practical

purposes we can say that sounds with a low pitch have a low frequency (which means

slow vibrations).

The quality of a sound is expressed by the difference in the complexity of the wave

form. A difference in the quality means a difference in wave shapes.

In our work we are interested in this property of vowel sounds – their quality which

will be studied from the spectral representations of the vowels. A spectrum is a diagram

showing the relative amplitudes of the frequency components. For the vowel quality we

are most interested in the formants – the peaks in the spectra of vowels which correspond

to the basic frequencies of the vibration of the air in the vocal tract. The formants of a

sound are aspects which are directly dependent on the shape of the vocal tract, and are

responsible for the characteristic quality (Ladefoged 1962).

In recent times the scholars have been trying to show how the movements of the

vocal organs generate the variations in air pressure which are characteristic for each

speech sound.

The acoustic phonetics is based on the basic knowledge that the air in the vocal tract

vibrates in different ways when the vocal organs are in different positions (Ladefoged

1962). It shows us what different sounds have in common and where they differ, what

40

distinguishes them and what similarities group them. A spectral representation of a sound

is one of the convenient ways of studying acoustic characteristics of speech sounds. Apart

from physical values like amplitude, intensity, waveform, and pitch, it also shows

formant frequencies of vowels that correspond to the basic frequencies of the vibrations

of the air in the vocal tract.

With the expansion of computer technologies it is nowadays very convenient to

perform acoustic analyses by the use of various computer programs – speech analyzers.

These generate the information about any specific sound in a recorded utterance at any

point we desire to choose.

There are certain relationships between the frequencies of the formants and the sizes

and shapes of the resonating cavities. Generally speaking, the formant frequencies

depend on three factors: the backward and forward movement of the tongue (which

influences the position of the point of maximum constriction in the vocal tract); the

movements of the tongue towards and away from the roof of the mouth and the back of

the throat (which influences the size of the area of the maximum constriction); and the

position of the lips (Ladefoged 1962).

The positions for the first two formants of a vowel are not random. Let us look more

closely at the formants we saw for Canadian English vowels:

Vowel [i] [ɪ] [e] [ɛ] [æ] [ɑ] [ɔ] [o] [ʊ] [u] [ʌ]

F1 280 370 405 600 860 830 560 430 400 330 680

F2 2230 2090 2080 1930 1550 1170 820 980 1100 1260 1310

Table 1: Values for first and second formants for Canadian vowels

(http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~krussll/phonetics/acoustic/spectrograms.html.)

If we place each vowel on a graph, where the horizontal dimension represents the

frequency of the first formant (F1) and the vertical dimension represents the frequency of

the second formant (F2), the graph will look like follows:

41

Figure 2: Formant graph of English vowels

If we change the axes of the graph so that the horizontal dimension shows

(decreasing) F2 and the vertical dimension shows (decreasing) F1, the result is similar to

the Jones's vowel chart:

As mentioned earlier, the frequency of the first formant is mostly determined by the

height of the tongue body:

high F1 = low vowel (i.e., high frequency F1 = low tongue body)

low F1 = high vowel (i.e., low frequency F1 = high tongue body)

The frequency of the second formant is mostly determined by the frontness/backness of

the tongue body:

high F2 = front vowel

low F2 = back vowel

42

In order to see the sound's changes over time, spectrograms are very convenient.

Spectrum diagrams are useful for seeing the state of a complex wave during a very short

period of time. In a spectrogram, the horizontal dimension represents time and the

vertical dimension represents frequency. Each thin vertical slice of the spectrogram

shows the spectrum during a short period of time, using darkness to stand for amplitude.

Darker areas show those frequencies where the simple component waves have high

amplitude.

Here is an example of a narrow-band spectrogram. A narrow-band spectrograms show

the individual harmonics. A Harmonic is a whole-number multiple of the fundamental

frequency of a wave form:

Figure 3: . An example of a narrow-band spectrogram

(http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~krussll/phonetics/acoustic/spectrograms.html.)

For situations where we are more interested in the frequency response curve of the

vocal tract than in raw spectra, we can use wide-band spectrograms. In these, the dark

areas are smeared over a wider area. This often hides the individual harmonics, but it

makes formants easier to see - they show up as dark bands. In the following example we

can see the changing formants of a diphthong:

43

Figure 4: An example of a wide-band spectrogram.

The given examples are taken from the web page of the University of Manitoba,

Canada:http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~krussll/phonetics/acoustic/spectrograms.html.

This work examines some aspects of speech and its analysis is based on the

spectrograms and mainly the formant qualities. We will see if the vowels which are said

to be distinct in tenseness differ in the quality which can be described by their height,

backness, or length. For example the difference between tense /i:/ and lax /ɪ/ can be

described as a difference in the vowel height and frontness as many researches have

proved. Peterson and Barney (1952) examined 76 speakers for their vowels and measured

their formant frequencies. The data were put in a chart where the horizontal axis

represents frequencies of first formants and the vertical axis shows the frequencies of

second formants. The results show how individual vowel sounds differ with respect to the

formant frequencies:

44

Figure 5: Vowel distribution based on the formant frequencies (Peterson and Barney 1952)

The following picture shows our data for an RP speaker. The data will be elaborated

in order to see if there is a significant difference between the means of each tense-lax

vowel pair. The same will be done for other accents: Scouse, Scottish English, and

Estuary English. The difference between KIT and FLEECE vowels is quite evident from

the graph and this will be tested for other accents in Chapter 5.

45

RP vowel chart

-700

-600

-500

-400

-300

-200

-100

0

-2500 -2000 -1500 -1000 -500 0

Frequncy of second formant

Fre

qu

en

cy o

f fi

rst

form

at KIT

FLEECE

PALM

STRUT

GOOSE

FOOT

FORCE

LOT

Figure 6: RP vowel distribution based on the frequencies of formants (our data)

2.6 Conclusion

We presented a summary of vowel categorizations as proposed by different authors.

The basic categorization of vowels distinguishes three dimensions: vowel height

corresponding to the tongue height, vowel backness corresponding to the position of the

tongue on a horizontal scale, and lip rounding.

From the point of view of universal distinctive phonemic features some languages

require other dimensions especially those describing laryngeal settings and tongue root

position. Tenseness was introduced as a term for differentiating these kinds of qualities in

vowels. However tense/lax opposition for English vowels has been used for different

vowel qualities probably because laryngeal settings do not produce phonemic differences

in English vowels. So, tenseness has been used as a binary feature to designate vowel

length, vowel height, or their position in syllables.

46

We will test British English vowels for their height, backness, and length to see if

these qualities are sufficient to produce phonemic differences or if tenseness should be an

essential part of vowel categorization for English vowel inventory.

47

3 Tense/Lax Feature

In Chapter 1 we presented different sets of phonemic distinctive features – one of

whose is tenseness. This chapter deals with tenseness in more details. We will give its

definition or rather definitions and the differences between them, and see how tenseness

functions in the world‟s languages. Then we will present its role in the phonology of

English and show some controversies in literature. The main issue of this chapter is to

revise the arguments for tenseness as a phonemic feature in English, specifically in

English vowels with regards to what was said in previous chapters about phonemic

features and categorizations of vowels in English.

The issue of tenseness appeared in phonetic literature as early as in 1867. It was

introduced in the phonetic system as one of the distinctive features by Bell in his work

Visible Speech (1867). He called the long vowels in German as "narrow" and the short

vowels as "wide" (Halle 1977). Even nowadays, in literature one can see that many

authors correlate tenseness with the length in Germanic languages. Other sources link the

tenseness feature to the tongue height. This obviously makes it very difficult to keep it

distinct from other phonetic distinctive features. Because of the difficulties in finding an

articulatory or acoustic correlate with tenseness the term can be defined only

impressionistically, as greater muscular tension of the tongue or of the whole vocal tract

(Hock 1991). The purpose of this work is to see from the spectral analysis whether the

feature tense/lax should be a part of inventory of the phonetic features for the English

vowels.

3.1 Definition of Tenseness

Ever since the term “tenseness” appeared in phonetics, it has been accompanied by

controversies and arguments for and against it as a part of the set of distinctive features.

From its beginning the tense/lax feature has appeared to be either unary, binary or scalar.

It is being correlated with the tongue height in the way that non-low tense vowels are

somewhat higher than the corresponding lax vowels (Hock 1991). All tense vowels tend

48

to be more peripheral (in the traditional vowel space diagram) than lax vowels, which

means more front for front vowels and more back for back vowels. Very often "tense"

corresponds to "long" and "lax" to "short". Nevertheless, this theory has not been

supported or proved by research.

Tenseness is a complex attribute which must take into account other articulatory and

auditory reference. Trask (1996) gives the following definition for tenseness: tense

vowels are described as having higher muscular tension, more extreme movements of

articulators, longer duration, and greater subglottal air pressure than the lax vowels.

For our purpose it is important to distinguish two major kinds of the tense feature that

appear in the literature. Firstly, the tenseness can be regarded as an attribute of a voice

quality and secondly, as an attribute of a vowel quality. The voice quality feature applies

to all sounds of the speech. It can be recognized in some world languages. This feature

correlates with the laryngeal setting. The variations in the laryngeal setting cause

different vibrations of the vocal folds, which results in different auditory characteristics

of a voice quality. Ladefoged (1996) recognizes five steps in continuum of modes of

vibration of the glottis among which tense and lax voice can be found. When referring to

a voice quality Ladefoged uses the terms „stiff voice‟ for tense and „slack voice‟ for lax

(Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996). Ladefoged (1971) speaks about the phonation process

and gives a „glottal stricture‟ as one of the features of the phonation. Within this feature

he differentiates nine categories: glottal stop, creak, creaky voice, tense voice, voice, lax

voice, murmur, breathy voice, and voiceless. He notes that: “A recent paper (Halle and

Stevens 1971) has suggested the terms stiff (instead of tense) voice, and slack (instead of

lack) voice” (Ladefoged 1971:18). In Ladefoged´s later works we can find that he has

adopted this terminology, which has proven to be useful for avoiding ambiguity with

tense/lax as a vowel feature. Tenseness vowel feature is the kind of feature we mean to

deal with in this paper and a closer look will be devoted particularly to the British English

vowel system and either a need or a redundancy of tenseness as a vowel distinctive

feature.

49

3.2 Tenseness in World's Languages

There are certainly not many phoneticians who have knowledge of all the world‟s

languages and we appreciate all works on languages to which we usually do not have any

access. Creating such works is preceded by exhausting time-consuming field work results

of which contribute enormously to linguistics and especially phonetics and phonology.

Our following description is based on research of Peter Ladefoged. In vowels Ladefoged

distinguishes „major vowel features‟ and „additional vowel features‟ (Ladefoged and

Maddieson 1996). Among the major features are vowel height, front-back variations in

vowels, and a lip position (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996). He states that these features

can specify the phonological contrasts within the languages, but are not sufficient for

discussing the phonetic differences between them (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996).

Among the additional vowel features there are 13 categories put in four groups:

1) Nasalization

2) Advanced Tongue Root

Pharyngealization

Stridency

Rhotacization

Fricative

3) Voiceless

Breathy

Slack

Stiff

Creaky

4) Long

Diphthongal

In group 3 we can see previously mentioned slack and stiff terms. Let us remind that

these terms mark the phonation type and can sometimes be called lax and tense

respectively. The „stiff‟ describes types of vowels produced with the body of the vocal

folds, the vocalis muscle, stiffened (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996). One of the

50

languages in which this appears as a distinctive feature is Mpi, a language with six tones,

each of which can occur with a plain or a laryngealized vowel resulting in 12 different

meanings (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996). The general rule shows that vowels with

stiff voice have more energy in the harmonics in the region of the first and second

formants than those with modal voice (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996). On the other

hand, vowels with slack voice tend to have comparatively more energy in the

fundamental frequency.

We must remember that the differences in slack and stiff within a language are

measurable quantitatively and that for some vowel pairs it is the only differentiating

component, so the glottal stricture is a phonemic feature for vowels in a particular

language.

Group 2 shows a feature Advanced Tongue Root which from now on we will refer to

as the ATR. The opposite of the ATR is a retracted tongue root. For many years, before

this term was introduced, it was the tense/lax opposition and even before tense/lax there

were different terms like narrow/wide or primary/wide (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996).

Investigating West African languages Ladefoged found out that many of them have

vowels which differ in the position of the tongue root (Ladefoged 1964). When the

tongue root is concerned the differences are best observable in high vowels. In Igbo, pairs

of vowels differ significantly in the tongue root position while they do not differ in the

height of the tongue (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996). In one case the root of the tongue

was strikingly more retracted than in the other. This was observed from x-ray

cinematography films of the Igbo non-low vowels (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996).

Another language in which ATR distinguishes two sets of vowels is Akan (Ladefoged

and Maddieson 1996). Lindau (1975) pointed out that in the languages with the ATR

opposition the difference is not only in the tongue root gesture but in the enlargement of

the whole pharyngeal cavity which may be caused partly by the movement of the tongue

root, but also by the lowering of the larynx (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996). In the

Akan language pairs of vowels differing in ATR also differ in the height of the tongue

(Lindau 1975). Perhaps this might be the reason why some phoneticians who correlate

the tenseness feature with the height linked the ATR feature with tenseness. This point

will be further discussed in the chapter Tenseness in English. The tongue seems to play a

51

crucial role in a vowel production; nevertheless we do not have a set of parameters which

would be equally suitable for specifying the tongue shapes of all vowels (Ladefoged

1971). Previously mentioned terms like narrow/wide (Sweet 1890) or tense/ lax

(Jakobson and Halle 1964) were invented as parameters of the tongue shape (Ladefoged

1971). A very important point was made by Lindblom and Sundberg (1969) that the

height of the tongue depends on the position of the jaw. It is possible to produce same

sounds with a combination of the tongue shape and jaw position. Sweet stated that

bunching the tongue by pulling the root of it forward toward the mandible results in the

main mass of the body of the tongue being displaced upward (Sweet 1890).

Apart from African languages mentioned earlier the tense feature also appears as

a distinctive feature in many Southeast Asian languages, for example Jingpo, Hani, Nasu,

Anong, and Wa (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996). The acoustic representation showed

an energy increase in higher formants and energy reduction in fundamental frequency.

To close this section we would like to review the facts about the tense/lax

distinction which correlates with laryngeal activity. This distinction concerns different

voice qualities: tense (stiff) voice involves an increase in muscular tension which causes

a constriction of the larynx and pharynx; heightened subglottal pressure and a raised

pitch. Tense (stiff) voice is used in contrast to lax (slack) voice in some languages of

Southeast Asia and Africa. The ATR is an additional vowel feature found and recognized

in some African languages and it results in the enlargement of the pharyngeal cavity and

lowering of the larynx. The lowering of the larynx results in a change of the voice

quality.

3.3 Tenseness in English and other Germanic Languages

The perception of sounds and their articulatory qualities led phoneticians to

implementation of features like tense/lax. Indeed our impression of sounds makes us to

create new terms of how to describe a subjective quality of a certain vowel. The word

´tense´ implies that should a vowel sound tense there should be some kind of greater

effort in its production. There started a scramble for evidence and research in the field of

articulation. The expansion of modern technologies has brought articulatory techniques in

52

the research of phonetics. Some of them are electromyographic investigation,

laryngoscopy, X-rays, MRI (magnetic resonance images), electroglottographic signal

data, and studies of a laryngeal activity.

There is no doubt that the research has brought many interesting findings and it is

essential to carry on laboratory work but it seems that sometimes we fail to interpret the

results in a solid and coherent way. If we try to learn about tense and lax vowels many

sources and phonetics books give somewhat vague descriptions which involve definitions

like: tense vowels are articulated with greater muscular effort than the lax vowels; there is

greater tongue tension in tense vowels, lax vowels are always short and tense vowels are

long monophthongs and diphthongs, etc.

A short revised explanation of the term tenseness can be found at the website

http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Tenseness:

"Tenseness is a term used in phonology to describe a particular vowel quality that

is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English. It has also

occasionally been used to describe contrasts in consonants. Unlike most distinctive

features, the feature [tense] can be interpreted only relatively, that is, in a language like

English that contrasts [i] (e.g. beat) and [ɪ] (e.g. bit), the former can be described as

a tense vowel while the latter is a lax vowel. Another example is Vietnamese, where the

letters ă and â represent lax vowels, and the letters a and ơ the corresponding tense

vowels. But in a language like Spanish, where there is no contrast, the vowel [i] cannot

be meaningfully described as either tense or lax"

(http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Tenseness). The description then follows in

comparing the tense and lax vowels:

"In general, tense vowels are more close (and correspondingly have lower first formants)

than their lax counterparts. Tense vowels are sometimes claimed to be articulated with a

more advanced tongue root than lax vowels, but this varies, and in some languages it is

the lax vowels that are more advanced, or a single language may be inconsistent between

front and back or high and mid vowels. The traditional definition, that tense vowels are

produced with more "muscular tension" than lax vowels, has not been confirmed by

phonetic experiments. Another hypothesis is that lax vowels are more centralized than

tense vowels. There are also linguists who believe that there is no phonetic correlation to

53

the tense-lax opposition" (http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Tenseness). As for

Germanic languages, the definition says:

"In many Germanic languages, such as RP English, standard German, and Dutch, tense

vowels are longer in duration than lax vowels; but in other languages, such

as Scots, Scottish English, and Icelandic, there is no such correlation.

Since in Germanic languages, lax vowels generally only occur in closed syllables, they

are also called checked vowels, whereas the tense vowels are called free vowels as they

can occur at the end of a syllable" (http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Tenseness).

Phoneticians who follow the tense/lax distinction in English vowels exemplify the

difference by pairs of English words such as beat-bit, bait-bet, fool-full, caught-cot;

where the first of the pair is tense and the second is lax.

Chomsky and Halle provide the following examples of words containing tense vowels:

be, fool, lord, hard, fir (Chomsky and Halle 1968) and words containing lax vowels: it,

head, hat, full, not, button, but (Chomsky and Halle 1968). The question arises why the

schwa sound in button is called lax while /ɜː/ is tense. The only difference between the

two sounds is their length. If the length is a conditioning aspect of tenseness it certainly

can not apply to English generally since some varieties of English do not make a same

distinction in the vowel duration. If some authors correlate tenseness to the length then

certainly /æ/ goes out of this correlation since often its duration is longer than the

duration of short vowels. Yet /æ/ falls in the group of lax vowels.

The fact that vowels do differ in length does not justify using the parameter of

tenseness. Those pairs of vowels which are supposed to enter the tense/lax distinction

actually differ in other parameters and are distinguished by variations of the major vowel

qualities: height, backness, and rounding (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996).

If we disregard the correlation of tenseness to the length then the closest articulatory

parameter to tenseness (with regards to 'muscular tension') is perhaps ATR. Ladefoged

and Maddieson (1996) compared the vocal tract shapes of the Igbo vowels and the Akan

vowels with the pairs of English vowels. They found out that in both Igbo and Akan the

tongue height is not correlated with the tongue root position (tongue height and

tongue root position are two different independent features) while in English the position

of the tongue root is correlated with the tongue height (especially for the back vowels)

54

(Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996). This is a very important finding because it justifies the

claim for the ATR/RTR for specific languages (like Igbo and Akan), as the tongue root

position is independent from the tongue height. The tongue height represents a different

phonemic feature than the tongue root position in the mentioned languages. That means

that there are words that have a sound differing only in the tongue height (and not the

tongue root position) and the same words can have a sound differing only in the tongue

root position but not the tongue height. In other words, the same tongue height but

different tongue root position changes the meaning of the words. The same tongue root

position but different tongue height changes the meaning of the words as well. For

English vowels the situation is different. The tongue root is not a separate independent

feature which would affect the meanings of the sounds as the only parameter. It is

correlated with the tongue height, so it is sufficient to describe a sound by the tongue

height because the tongue root is affected by the tongue height and does not represent an

independent phonemic feature.

As for German, the same is valid for the back vowels, for the front vowels the so-

called lax vowels show a more advanced tongue root (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996).

No common setting of the tongue root was found for the so-called lax vowels that would

distinguish them from the so-called tense vowels (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996).

Jackson (1988) also implies that there is no separate control of the root of the tongue

in English; on the other hand, in Akan there are three independent features of tongue

shape. The [+ATR] such as seen in the West African languages is a separable tongue

gesture which can not be adopted by English.

The crucial point in stating the features is the fact that the quality in question should

have perceptible acoustic consequences which differentiate it from other possible ways of

achieving same acoustic effects. Individual differences in articulation and sound

production do not justify us to claim the need for additional phonetic features. A required

tongue shape can be produced in several different ways, for example the height of the

tongue can be changed by using the genioglossus muscle, some people make more use of

the mylohyoid muscle, and yet others raise or lower the jaw in order to control the tongue

height (Ladefoged 2001). It is always difficult to be sure which muscles cause a

particular speech movement. The shape of the tongue is more important than the

55

particular muscles used because the muscles combine in different ways to create

distinctive shapes (Ladefoged 2001). The X-rays analyses have shown that nearly all the

vowels of English can be made by a combination of two basic movements of the tongue:

the degree of raising and the backward movement (Ladefoged 2001). The only exception

is the rhoticized vowel (American English bird) that requires bunching of the tongue

(Ladefoged 2001). This fact brings us back to the traditional description of vowels that

the vowels differ in three ways: tongue height, tongue backness, and lip opening. The

terms „tongue height‟, „tongue backness‟, and „lip opening‟ were first introduced by Bell

and were later adopted by other linguists. These terms have become the cornerstone of a

vowel description although throughout the time their meaning has changed. Time,

experience, observations, and technology have brought us knowledge that early

phoneticians, including Bell, were not accurate in their understanding of the tongue

position in vowels (Ladefoged 2001). We know that the notion of the tongue height and

backness, which plotted vowels on charts showing the supposed positions of extreme

points of the tongue, is not exact. At least it is not correct in assuming that vowels in the

charts correspond to the tongue position on the vertical and horizontal axis. But they are

very close to it. Traditional phoneticians (perhaps without knowing) actually made vowel

charts in which the positions of vowels correspond to the formant frequencies: the

„tongue height‟ is an indicative of the first formant, and the „tongue backness‟ is an

indicative of the second formant.

The British tradition regards the differences between „tense-lax‟ vowels as differences

that can be described within the major features and does not think it necessary to consider

an additional „tenseness‟ feature. As mentioned earlier the set of distinctive features is

based articulatorily for the reason of better precision. Acoustic-based descriptions are

sometimes difficult to state since the sound perception is individual and subjective;

however, they have proved to be reliable indications of many sounds (rhotic, sibilant).

Going back to the definitions of tenseness, which involve muscular tension or pharyngeal

constriction but no unique acoustic effect (other than height or length) we regard the

tense/lax distinction in English vowels as unjustified.

Individual differences in vowel production were investigated by Johnson, Ladefoged,

and Lindau in 1991. Their examinations of speech production confirmed that different

56

speakers employ different articulators to carry out a particular acoustic aim. In their study

they focused on differences in the vowel production and investigated the influence of the

articulators‟ geometry, speaking rate, and dialect differences. Their results suggest that

the articulatory strategy is not directly motivated by the physical requirements of

speaking (Johnson, Ladefoged, and Lindau (1991). Different physiognomy of speakers

may require different patterns of articulation, but on the other hand we may suppose that

different varieties of articulatory gestures for any particular speech sound may be

functionally equivalent (Johnson, Ladefoged, and Lindau 1991). "Normal speech seems

to exploit no more than a fraction of the degrees of freedom that are in principle available

for articulation" (Lindblom 1983:224).

In the study of individual differences in vowel production the researchers also

investigated differences in the production of the so called tense/lax distinction (pairs: [i] –

[ɪ], [eɪ] – [ɛ], and [u] – [ʊ]) (Johnson, Ladefoged, and Lindau 1991). They measured the

jaw height and the tongue height. The results showed that for the four analysed speakers,

linguistic vowel height was uniformly associated with the relative height of the jaw;

however the tense/lax distinction was manifested in different ways (Johnson, Ladefoged,

and Lindau 1991). The results also imply that all speakers differentiated the [i] – [ɪ] pair

by varying tongue height within a constant jaw position; but in other tense/lax pairs no

uniformity was observed (Johnson, Ladefoged, and Lindau 1991).

Leaving aside the detailed results of the paper we can assume that while linguistic

height was uniformly associated with different jaw positions, the tense/lax distinction in

American English was produced by varying tongue height within a fixed jaw position, or

by coordinating the tongue and the jaw in the same manner as for varying linguistic

vowel height, or even by varying the tongue and jaw in opposite directions (Johnson,

Ladefoged, and Lindau 1991).

The fact that speakers differ in their ways of producing tense and lax vowels is not

new. It has been suggested earlier by Ladefoged et al. (1972) or Bell-Berti et al.(1978)

but the study mentioned here showed that it is even more complicated because not only

do different speakers produce the tense/lax distinction in different ways, but the same

57

speaker patterned differently for different tense/lax pairs (Johnson, Ladefoged, and

Lindau 1991).

Pape and Mooshammer (2006) studied the intrinsic pitch differences for German

tense and lax vowels. Intrinsic pitch is a component in the fundamental frequency (F0)

which is due to the correlation between vowel height and F0 (Gussenhoven 2004).

Another term for intrinsic pitch is „intrinsic F0‟ suggested by Reetz (1999). According to

some theories supported by studies {e.g. Whalen & Levitt (1995)} F0 of high vowels is

higher than that of low vowels in similar phonetic contexts other things being equal.

Intrinsic F0 serves as information for vowel height although it does not contribute to

perception of an intonation contour or perception of pitch (Reinholt 1986). Pape and

Mooshammer (2006) found out that tense and lax vowels show a similar F0 but differ in

articulatory vowel height. Further results show that comparing the tense and lax vowel

pairs none of the speakers performed a significant difference in F0 (Pape and

Mooshammer 2006). Considering the onset and offset of the vowel, the vowel onset

shows a similar significance pattern as the vowel mid; all high vowels are produced with

significantly higher F0 values than low vowels but the tenseness difference is non-

significant (Pape and Mooshammer 2006). As for the offset of the vowel, only the tense

vowel /a:/ is significantly different from other vowels (for one of the speakers no

significance); comparing tense and lax vowels no speaker shows significant differences

(Pape and Mooshammer 2006). Measurements of the vertical tongue back positions

revealed the following facts: the vowel pairs /i:/ - /ɪ/ and /u:/ - /ʊ/ showed significantly

lower tongue height for the lax vowels; one of the speakers had a significantly lower

tongue position for tense /a:/ compared to lax /a/ (Pape and Mooshammer 2006).

Although the aim of Pape and Mooshammer's study was investigating the articulatory

data with regards to the F0 and its possible differences for tense and lax vowels in

German, their results show the correlation of tenseness to the vowel height for the high

vowels /i:/ and /u:/. The vowel pairs /i:/ - /ɪ/ and /u:/ - /ʊ/ showed significantly lower

tongue height for the lax vowels.

Research of intrinsic F0 suggests that high vowels are produced with higher F0 than

low vowels.

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Fischer-Jørgensen (1990) found in her study where she examined speakers from

Northern Germany that “some lax vowels had a higher intrinsic F0 as predicted from their

tongue height, e.g. /ɪ/ is higher than /e:/” (Schneeberg and Schlüßler 2006: 20). However

the investigation conducted by Schneeberg and Schlüßler showed that there was no

evidence to show that F0 in lax vowels is higher than in their counterparts. We must say,

though, that in the quotation from Fischer-Jørgensen there is an example of /ɪ/and /e: /

which are not counterparts in tenseness but differ in the vowel height. So the result is in

accordance with the hypothesis that higher vowels have higher intrinsic F0. Schneeberg

and Schlüßler‟s study showed no evidence that F0 changes are due to tense/lax

distinctions.

3.4 Conclusion

No matter whether researchers use the feature „tense‟ for traditional purposes or they

are convinced about its lawfulness, tense/lax opposition is a confusing term for English

vowels and is never used without other specifying correlates like: long, short, checked,

peripheral, central, etc., without which the term would not be sufficient to be understood.

We presented some interesting studies which suggest that tenseness can be described

by tongue height. While in some world‟s languages tenseness might have acoustic effects

that carry phonemic distinctions (other than tongue height or length), this does not seem

to be the case in English.

There is a study (Pape and Mooshammer 2006) in which the articulatory positions

significantly differ for tense-lax vowel pairs (with regards to tongue and jaw positions)

but the measured F0 is similar. This means that if there is a change in F0 it is not due to

tenseness phenomenon. This was also confirmed in the study by Schneeberg and

Schlüßler (2006) who investigated F0 and other laryngeal correlates of the tenseness

contrast for German vowels. The results showed no significant differences for intrinsic F0

between tense and lax vowels. The results from phonatory parameters derived from the

laryngographic signal did not provide evidence for a distinction between tense and lax

vowels (Schneeberg and Schlüßler 2006). Pape and Mooshammer's as well as

59

Schneeberg and Schlüßler‟s studies imply that acoustic differences in vowels are due to

the tongue position rather than tenseness distinction.

It seems that the traditional vertical division of vowels: „open, mid-open, and close‟

can cover the English vowels in terms of jaw opening but could be subdivided into

smaller portions which would represent tongue height {linguistic height is uniformly

associated with different jaw positions (Johnson, Ladefoged, and Lindau 1991)}.

Whether the proposition of having more tongue height levels within three jaw

positions is justified will be the main concern of Chapter 5. We will test the pairs of

vowels said to be distinct in tenseness for their height and backness positions as well as

for length, and see if they significantly differ in these parameters. The pairs will be tested

in four different British accents and for this reason we will provide short descriptions

with main characteristics of the four accents in the following chapter.

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4 Varieties of English

This chapter discusses some basic principles of the development of English and

describes its current state. We will mention some British English varieties as investigated

by present sociolinguists and give a more detailed description of four accents: Received

Pronunciation, Liverpool accent (Scouse), Standard Scottish English, and Estuary

English, whose vowel inventory will be tested in Chapter 5.

A language undergoes many changes throughout time. Some of these changes are

perceptible during one person‟s lifetime, and other changes take decades or centuries.

We can describe the results and derive the rules backward in time. We can say how

things changed but often we can not say why. We can observe the ongoing changes but

we can not foretell what the definite result will be like. We can suppose that in the past

the language varieties differed mainly regionally – „say a sentence and I will tell you

where you are from‟. First a person learns the language of his/her region and later adopts

(or not) a social variety of a dialect.

In modern times our language and the way we use it can be influenced by many more

factors. Language behaviour has always been unpredictable and in a motion. Some

nations solved the situation of a changing language by determining something like a

norm or formal language. Only one form of a particular language is formal,

representative, and must be taught at school over the entire region of that language users.

This formal codex is more or less stable throughout the history and the only changing

part of it is its lexis. An example of such a language is Arabic. Its codex form is the old

language of the Qor‟an. It is valid as a representative variety of Arabic used from

Morocco through Egypt and Middle East to the Arabic Peninsula. Apart from the formal

codex there are many local varieties which might be so different from each other that

people from different parts of the Arabic world do not understand each other unless they

speak the codex form of Arabic. The English language does not have any particular

„codex form‟. All varieties are considered as correct and standard and may differ not only

in the lexis but also in grammatical structures, pronunciation, or syntax. Some varieties

are more preferable in the population than others, some varieties may be regarded as

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more prestigious than others, and some may be more comprehensible for foreigners. The

varieties are not stable though; they undergo a constant change and are under influence of

various social factors like fashion, geographic and social fluctuation of people, etc. In

English a particular description of a particular variety is never definite and stable for

ever. It can be valid for decades but a constant revision and re-evaluation is necessary due

to the above mentioned changes.

4.1 Historical Perspective

The English language has not succeeded in establishing a codex form. Rather it is

undergoing a constant change on the level of all varieties. The changes which can be

perceptible are called “sound laws”; in the traditional approach a sound law is an

observed correspondence between two stages of a language (before the change and after

it) (Chomsky and Halle 1968).

The beginning of English dates back to the fifth century when Germanic invaders

settled in Britain from the north-western coastline of continental Europe. From this

period we do not have written record yet. The first writings appeared in the seventh

century. The language of this period is generally called Old English.

In the ninth century large numbers of Norse invaders settled in Britain, especially in

the northern and eastern areas. Their speech had great influence on English. But since

Old English and the language of Norsemen were both Germanic, it is difficult to find out

the origin of individual words. Old English was a language with quite a rich inflectional

system. The system was not preserved and was replaced by a morphologically simpler

language referred to as Middle English. This change started after the event known as the

Norman Conquest (1066) and took centuries to establish.

The Norman Conquest largely removed the native ruling class, replacing it with a

foreign, French-speaking monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy. It also had some

consequences for the rest of the British Isles, giving the way for further Norman

conquests in Wales and Ireland, and the huge invasion of the aristocracy of Norman and

other French-speaking families to Scotland. The predominance of the Anglo-Norman

62

language was further reinforced and complicated in the mid-twelfth century by an influx

of followers of the Angevin dynasty, speaking a more mainstream dialect of French.

While Old English tended to find native equivalents for foreign words, Middle

English acquired the habit of accepting foreign words readily as a result of the Norman

government. The vocabulary of Middle English was enriched by many loan words from

French and Latin. Middle English formed the basis for the modern language.

The late medieval and early modern periods represent the start of the "dialect

awareness": each district had a particular dialect represented also in writing. Through the

technology of printing (1476) people from different areas could see that the way they

spoke was of a different kind. Broadly London standard began to dominate. It became

used more widely especially amongst higher members of society. Other regional varieties

experienced a kind of stigmatization – as if they lacked social prestige and indicated

lower education.

In this period the pronunciation of English underwent significant sound laws in the

south of England. These laws were studied and described by a Danish linguist Otto

Jespersen (1860–1943) who gave them a collective name: the Great Vowel Shift. The

changes influenced mainly the vowel system of the language but did not happen

uniformly in all dialects. What mechanism spread the changes further is not known

exactly, but they were social and historical factors which made the changes expand to

other regions. The Great Vowel Shift is a complicated set of many changes which may

have taken place in different places at different times and may have affected different

dialects in different ways. The GVS is not a bunch of changes that could be simply put in

a chart neither should it be referred to as a certain point in English history or a

breakthrough in English phonological system. There were many other sub-changes taking

place which are not included in the GVS because they either do not fit the time schedule

for the GVS or they do not fit the principle claimed to be primary in the GVS.

The principle of the Great Vowel Shift is that the vowels generally rose upward,

pushing the next higher vowel into the place above. The vowels on top had no higher

place to go and so became diphthongs. The front vowels were one chain pushing

upwards, and the back vowels were another. It is not our task to develop a discussion

about the GVS, whether and how exactly it happened. Since the changes were happening

63

between 1500 and 1700 it is rather questionable whether they can at all be simplified in

the way of the GVS. The language of the period between 1500-1700 is called Early

Modern English.

Since in this paper we are interested in the regional varieties of English we will not

look into further development of English generally but rather focus on the geographical

distribution of the varieties of English.

4.2 Geographical and Social Distribution

For the purpose of this paper we understand accent as the set of pronunciation

conventions of some speech community (Gasser 2006). The boundaries between accents

are arbitrary. Accents have differences within themselves and usually import features

from different accents, so we can hardly speak about any particular accent in its pure

form, simply because it hardly exists. Instead, we speak about a "broad" accent which is

the term used to describe the form that is most different from the standard. Broad accents

illustrate possible differences best. Most people speak some form in between a particular

accent and a standard form or a mixture of accents. If a particular regional accent prevails

in a person's speech, but has some characteristics of other accents, we call that person's

speech that particular accent.

The standard accents in the British Isles are those of England, Scotland, Ireland, and

possibly Wales in very broad terms. Regionally, the accents in the south are: London

accent, Cockney, southern accents (East Anglia, the West country, and Bristol). Moving

from London towards the Scottish border we cross the midlands which comprises the east

(Leicester and Nottingham) and west midlands (Birmingham); the middle north (counties

of Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire), Merseyside and Lancaster

(their speech is referred to as „Scouse‟), and finally getting to the far north represented by

Tyneside (accent commonly called „Geordie‟). We will also have a look at a

representative of Scottish accents - Standard Scottish English.

This paper focuses on four of the British accents: RP, Estuary English, Standard

Scottish English, and Scouse. The last three accents are regional while RP is not. RP in

fact is spoken by no more than 10% of the English population. Nevertheless, by the rest

64

of the world it is recognized as a representative form of British English. When people

speak about "British" accent, they usually mean RP. If a foreign learner wants to learn

British-oriented English, they would be taught RP. In fact, RP makes much more sense

for the rest of the world than for Britain itself. In Britain RP is entirely a social accent.

For long it has been associated with the upper end of the social scale. But how far down

the social scale does it go? In the past RP used to be seen as an accent of "educated"

people. If we compare the amount of people going to universities a few decades ago and

nowadays, we can see that the amount of "educated" people has risen significantly. The

same is not true for the RP speakers so at present it would not be right to refer to RP as a

speech of educated class. RP is not any "correct" kind of pronunciation either. Neither is

RP easier to learn or understand. Its importance lies mainly outside the borders of British

Isles. RP is the model language for British-English oriented foreign learners and its

codification for teaching purposes is justified. But even though, we should follow the

changes and tendencies going on in RP throughout the time, be flexible and ready to

apply them in our prescribed RP models for teaching EFL.

Something acoustically close to RP is an accent called Estuary English. The term

Estuary was put forward by Rosewarne in 1984. This variety has features of RP and

reminds us of broad Cockney too. We chose this accent for our research as a

representative of southern English accents. The term Estuary English might be as well

covered by the term London English although it covers wider area than London itself.

Features of this variety were described in details by Wells (1982) and were called

“popular London” speech.

In 1984 Rosewarne introduced Estuary English as something new, a new accent

which is supposed to overweight RP and become a possible standard form of English in

the future. His implementation of the term Estuary supported by lectures and

medialization together with its mention in Gimson‟s Pronunciation of English* (fifth

edition, revised by Cruttenden), caused that this “new” model has been accepted by the

linguistic audience as a novelty in British sociolinguistics.

*A.C. Gimson wrote his monumental An introduction to Pronunciation of English in 1962 and it has been

extensively revised and rewritten since his death in 1985, first by Ramsaran and then by Cruttenden

65

Reliable phonological investigations proved though that making Estuary English a

distinctive variant is somewhat premature if not redundant. As mentioned before features

of Estuary English have been described earlier by Wells and were named as “popular

London” speech or “the speech of London and the Southeast” (Przedlacka 2001).

In order to avoid any misunderstanding we will continue to call this southern and

London popular accent as Estuary English thus accepting Rosewarne's term and

following the majority of linguistic audience.

4.3 Main Characteristic Features of RP, Estuary English, Standard Scottish

English, and Scouse

4.3.1 RP

Earlier we mentioned that there are ongoing changes within varieties of English.

RP is not an exception. Wells (1982) distinguishes the following sub-varieties within

RP:

U-RP is the language of the upper crust RP, quite conservative RP belonging

to the upper class of the society.

Mainstream RP or general RP commonly known as the RP adopted by the

BBC, and finally

Adoptive RP mainly used by young people of exclusive social groups, or in

professional circles for prestige value who adopted RP later in their life but

did not speak it as children (Wells 1982).

The mainstream RP involves the following principal processes (Wells 1982):

Place assimilation: e.g. ten minutes /tem mɪnɪts/, ɡood ɡirl /ɡʊɡ ɡɜːl/;

Elision: e.g. stand near me /stæn nɪə miː/, next day /neks deɪ/;

Unstressed H Dropping: e.g. tell him /tel ɪm/;

Syllabic Consonant Formation: get along /ɡetlɒŋ/, correct /kɾekt/;

Compression: e.g. to arrive /twəraɪv/, literary /lɪtɾɪ/;

Smoothing: e.g. do it at three o'clock /dʊ ɪt ət ɵrɪ əklɒk/, fire power /faə paə/;

66

/r/ sandhi (merger): e.g. The rotor/rota isn' t ready /ðə rəʊtər ɪznt redɪ/.

4.3.2 Estuary English

For some the features of Estuary English may represent just changing RP

pronunciation, a slow merger of RP and London Standard together with some of the

Cockney phonemic realizations but a majority of population considers these changes as

covered by the term Estuary English. Wells (1982) describes the typical features of it as

following:

Tensing of final and prevocalic /ɪ/: the final vowel in words such happy, coffee,

valley tends to be pronounced with the vowel /i:/ as in beat.

Rise of the diphthong /ɒʊ/ before dark /l/: words like fold and goal tend to be

pronounced with a starting vowel /ɒ/ of lot. So people using this feature make a

distinction between /əʊ/ and /ɒʊ/ using /əʊ/ in words without dark /l/; thus hope /həʊp/,

soap /səʊp/, or road /rəʊd/.

Change in the quality of /uː, ʊ/: these vowels are losing their lip-rounding and

also ceasing to be very back approaching more /i/ than /u:/: spoon /spʊʉn, spɪɨn/, zoo

/zɪʉ/, you /yɪɨ/.

T-glottalling: the environments for the glottal stop replacing /t/ extend and

include word-final position even when the next word does not start with a vowel: e.g.

quite easy /kwaɪʔ iːzi/, take it off /teɪk ɪʔ ɒf/, not only /nɒʔ əʊnli/; but do not appear

intervocalically within a word which is still regarded as a Cockney feature.

L-vocalization: the dark allophone /ɫ/ (milk /mɪɫk/) undergoes a vocalization

process and is becoming a vowel /o/: milk /mɪok/, shelf /ʃɛof/, tables /tɛɪboz/, apple

/æpo/.

Yod-coalescence: includes stressed syllables: Tuesday /tʃuːzdɛɪ/, tune /tʃuːn/,

duke /dʒuːk/.

67

4.3.3 Standard Scottish English

Standard Scottish English (SSE) is a variety of Standard English spoken with a

Scottish accent flavour as opposed to the language generally called Scots. Scots is the

traditional dialect spoken in southern, central, and north-eastern Scotland (Wells 1982).

Most people in these areas have both SSE and Scots at their command but there are many

middle-class Scottish people who speak only English even in the areas where Scots is

spoken (Wells 1982). In some areas, especially in the industrial cities, SSE and Scots

constitute a continuum in which it is difficult to make a clear distinction between the two

varieties. On the other hand people in rural areas distinguish them very sharply.

The main and typical feature of SSE is the lack of /ʊ-u/ and /a-aː/ oppositions. Also

long-short oppositions are of a different sort than in other accents. Actually, vowel length

in SSE is not a matter of duration (Ladd 2005). Length is a phonological abstraction.

Investigations showed that on the basis of indirect phonetic evidence the vowels /i, e, ai,

o, u/ may be considered long (Ladd 2005). A Scottish linguist Aitken discovered the rule

known as Aitken‟s Law which says that a vowel is phonetically short unless it is followed

by a voiced fricative and /r/, and in open syllables (Aitken 1962). That is, vowels are long

in a morpheme-final position or in the environment of following /v, ð, z, r/: this applies to

all vowels except /ɪ/ and /ʌ/ (which are always short) (Wells 1982).

The most typical characteristics of the SSE vowel system is the lack of /ʊ-u/

opposition. So the FOOT words rhyme with GOOSE words: the following pairs are

perfect homophones: pull-pool, full-fool, look-Luke, and rhymes: good-mood, foot-boot,

puss-loose, pudding-brooding, wool-tool, woman-human (Wells 1982). The fact that

there is no /ʊ-u/ opposition applies to all Scottish accents, although words containing

these phonemes may have different realizations in different accents. FOOT words may be

realized as /fut/, /fʉt/, /fɪt/, or /fʏt/, and similarly the GOOSE words. Still, the point is

that there is no phonemic contrast between /u/ and /ʊ/ vowels.

Scottish English is rhotic and unlike other accents, all vowels can occur before /r/.

According to Wells (1982), the three most commonly found occurrences may be

presented as following:

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pert, heard→ realized as /ɛr/

dirt, bird→ realized as /ɪr/

hurt, word→ realized as /ʌr/

The vowel system typical in Scottish English (with regional differences, of course) is

shown in figure 4.1 as put together by Wells (1982). Vowels in the following examples

appear in pre –/r/ environments:

_r# _rC _rV

i beer fierce weary

ɪ stir bird spirit

e air scarce fairy

ɛ err pert ferry

a bar start marry

ɔ war horse sorry

o wore hoarse story

ʌ purr word hurry

u poor gourd jury

Table 2: Scottish English Vowels in pre –/r/ environments

The realization of the phoneme /r/ is quite a complicated matter in terms of rules or

regularities. Different allophones of r can be heard in different speakers. One of the

varieties is a rolled (some use the term trilled) /r/ called a voiced alveolar roll (Wells

1982). Although some people consider rolled /r/ a typical feature of Scottish English its

real occurrence is rare. As early as in 1913, Grant claimed that "within recent years there

has been a tendency to attenuate the force of the trill especially in final positions and

before another consonant. The trill may be reduced (finally and before consonants) to a

69

single tap /ɾ/, or even to a fricative consonant /ɹ/, and in the latter case a change of quality

in the preceding vowel is perceptible" (Grant 1913:35). Nowadays, the most common

Scottish r is realized as an alveolar tap /ɾ/, and a post-alveolar or retroflex fricative or

approximant /ɹ/ (Wells 1982). Their usage depends much on a social context and

regional distribution, as well as gender and style of speech. Grant (1913) mentions also

the uvular /ʁ/ which is regarded as a speech disorder while Wells (1982) claims that even

the uvular /ʁ/ is "surprisingly common as a personal idiosyncrasy in some parts of

Scotland (e.g. Aberdeen); but it can hardly be regarded as a local-accent feature" (Wells

1982:411).

Scottish English consonants have some very distinguishable features, which makes it

easy for the accent to be recognized. Among these is an occurrence of the velar fricative

/x/. Unlike in Scots, in SSE it appears mainly in proper names and words of a Greek or

Hebrew origin spelt with ch: technical, patriarch, epoch, parochial (Wells 1982).

Scottish /p, t, k/ are typically unaspirated, and T Glottalling is very popular. Among other

well-known features of Scottish English is the item transcribed as /ʍ/ (a voiceless labial-

velar fricative) or simply as /hw/ in words like: where, whine, etc (Wells 1982). Again, to

state any regularity for the occurrence of /hw/ is a demanding task calling for more

research. In some regions the velar component is very strong and the sound resembles

/xw/ (Wells 1982). The spelling does not really help as /hw/ can be found in occasional

words where the spelling does not imply the /hw/ pronunciation and vice-versa; so whelk

is /wɛlk/, and weasel is /hwizəl/ (Wells 1982).

We can summarize the typical features of SSE and highlight 15 most striking

perceptible traits as follows:

Vowel length: non-phonemic, environment dependent, vowels /i/, /u/, and

/æ/ are usually long but shortened before nasals and voiced plosives (this does not occur

across morpheme boundaries).

Absence of /ʊ -u/ opposition: Scottish /u/ is more front, pronounced as /ʉ/

or /ʏ/.

70

Absence of /ɒ - ɔː/ difference: words differing in the two phonemes in

other English varieties have one realization in SSE: as /ɔ/. Thus cot and caught are

homophones in SSE.

Absence of /æ – aː/ distinction: TRAP and PALM words are realized with

/a/ or /ɑ/.

The happY vowel: usually pronounced as /e/ (as in FACE), other varieties

include /ɪ/ or /i/.

Contrasted /or/ and /ur/: words shore and sure are pronounced differently.

Vowels before /r/: as opposed to other varieties of English where /ɛ/, /ɪ/,

and /ʌ/ merged before /r/, SSE differentiates them: words herd, bird, and curd are /hɛrd/,

/bɪrd/, and /kʌrd/ respectively.

/o/ and /ɔ / before /r/: in SSE are pronounced differently, so hoarse and

horse are not homophones.

Rhotic accent: /r/ is pronounced in the syllable coda; /r/ may be an

alveolar approximant /ɹ/, an alveolar tap /ɾ/, or less commonly an alveolar trill /r/.

Presence of /x/: the velar fricative /x/ is retained in names, Gaelic and

Scots borrowings, or in words of Greek and Hebrew origin.

Distinction between /w/ and /hw/: most commonly the spelling implies the

usage of /hw/ but can not be taken as a rule; witch and which pronounced differently.

T Glottalling: /t/ is often substituted by the glottal stop in colloquial

speech depending on region, social class, gender, style of speech, etc.

Difference in lexical incidence of /ɵ/: words thither, thence, though, with,

without are pronounced with /ɵ/ instead of /ð/. /ɵ/ also occurs in plural nouns where RP

has /ð/ (baths, youths). Some speakers make final /ɵ/ as /s/: both is /bos/ (Wells 1982).

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4.3.4 Scouse

Scouse, also commonly known as the accent of Liverpool is a type of speech heard in

the county of Merseyside. Its very salient sounds and typical intonation makes the accent

very distinct from other accents. Being quite a young variety of English it is believed to

have spread in the nineteenth century, when many Irish and Welsh immigrants settled in

this part of England (Wells 1982). Some of the features could be attributed to the

northern region (e.g. FOOT words or BATH words) but there are some features attributed

to Irish influence (Knowles 1974).

Perhaps the most recognizable sounds are those appearing in certain syllable-final

environments. These are voiceless stops /p, t, k/ which, due to the lack of complete

closure, result in / , ʈ, x/; for example: snake /sneɪx/, short /ʃɔːts/, daughter /dɔːtsə/

(Wells 1982).

Other sounds typically attributed to Scouse include the NURSE and SQUARE

merger: nurse, shirt, burn are realized as /nɛːs/, /ʃɛːts/, and /bɛːn/. The GOAT words

have a diphthong with a range of qualities including /oʊ/, /ɔʊ/ but also /eʊ/.

In literature one often finds a description of Scouse as being 'adenoidal'. The word

'adenoidal' concerns the voice quality and it basically means the opposition of 'nasal'.

Nasal voice is perceptible when the stream of air passes the nasal cavities in greater

extent than in a neutral voice. In a normal neutral voice there is a certain proportion of air

passing the oral cavity and nasal cavities. When this proportion changes in favour of the

nasal cavities, the result is a nasal voice. What happens if the nasal cavities are

obstructed? The stream of air intended for nasal cavities is forced to pass through the oral

cavity, of which result is so called 'adenoidal' voice. This happens very often when a

person suffers from a cold; the nasal tissue is swollen thus making an obstruction and the

nasal cavity is partially or completely closed. The nasal sounds /m/, /n/ or /ŋ/ are

produced in the oral cavity and the result is a somewhat funny speech where /m/ sounds

like /b/. Scouse is an accent which may sound as if a speaker's nasal cavities were

partially closed and the air was passing mainly through the oral cavity. Nevertheless, it is

an auditory effect caused by different articulatory settings; the nasal passages are

72

unobstructed. Phoneticians who studied the 'adenoidal' characteristics of Scouse correlate

this feature with the position of the jaw. Knowles describes the articulatory settings as

following:

"The centre of gravity of the tongue is brought backwards and upwards, the pillars of

the fauces are narrowed, the pharynx is tightened, and the larynx is displaced upwards.

The lower jaw is typically held close to the upper jaw, and this position is maintained

even for 'open' vowels" (Knowles 1978:89).

Last but not least it is worthwhile to mention one of the prosodic features of Scouse.

Although this issue falls outside the topic, describing Scouse, or rather stating the main

salient characteristics of it, would be far from complete without mentioning the raising

tone at the end of an utterance where RP would have a fall.

4.4 Conclusion

In the past it was considered that an English properly speaking person would use so

called BBC English in his/her formal communication. A person speaking in public was

expected to speak this variety of English known nowadays as RP.

As other accents were slowly appearing in broadcasting they started to gain more or

less popularity among the public. Nowadays all different accents are widely accepted and

the role of RP became mainly to be the variety for teaching purposes and for international

users of English.

Our interest concerns the question whether different varieties of English reflect the

main linguistic specifications. We showed in this chapter that language varieties have

peculiarities which are sometimes considerably different from the „representative‟ variety

of the language. We want to test the validity of tenseness in other accents of English. Are,

for example, distinctive phonemic features applicable to other varieties as well? If we

state that length in English works as a differentiating feature is such a statement valid

generally and for all varieties or should it be specified for a particular variety or perhaps

should not be regarded at all if it is not applicable to all the varieties? We will therefore

test not only RP but also other four varieties and compare the results.

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5 Acoustic Analysis of the Tense/Lax Opposition in Vowels

of British English Varieties

5.1 Corpus and Methodology

For the vowel analysis four different recordings were used. These were taken from

the International Dialects of English Archive - a free, online archive of primary source

dialect and accent recordings created in 1977 by Professor Paul Meier. The archive is

available at: http://web.ku.edu/~idea/index.htm.

The recordings consist of a read text and a short speech. Four different individuals

were chosen, each of them represents one dialect: so there is one recording for RP, one

for Scouse, one for Scottish English, and one for Estuary English. The transcripts of the

recordings are included in the appendix.

For the spectral analysis we used the freeware PRAAT version 5.1.29 downloadable

from: http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/. In each of the four recordings we selected

between four and eleven tokens for every analysed vowel.

The following tokens were analysed:

For RP:

PALM vowel: archeological, last, started, garden, past

STRUT vowel: bunch, others, us, Monday, mud, none, up

NURSE vowel: skirmish, turf, word, first

SCHWA: others, American, excavation, England, o‟clock, permission, disappeared

FLEECE vowel: sixteen, weeks, medieval, greenhouses, knees, theses

KIT vowel: sixteen, exams, expression, isn‟t it, didn‟t, in England, civil, permission,

houses, lived, in, aristocracy

FORCE vowel: all, pouring, morning, called, hall, before, gaunt

LOT vowel: what, off, on, was, long, wanted

GOOSE vowel: school, do, two, June, shooting, waterproof

FOOT vowel: stood, into, to have, good, looked

TRAP vowel: exams, that‟s, ancestry, back, Lamport, have, hat

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DRESS vowel: American, sent, extend, trench, twelve, dedicated, said

SQUARE vowel: air, there, there2, wearing

For Scouse:

PALM vowel: started, palm, bath, last

STRUT vowel: unsanitary, picked up, suffering, strut, but

NURSE vowel: nurse, working, first, work, thirty

SCHWA: on her, a bowl, herself, woman, letter, surprising

FLEECE vowel: street, fleece, disease, see, treatment, immediately

KIT vowel: been, territory, territory, very, happy, picked, story, headed

FORCE vowel: story, north, morning, form, normally, before, force, thought

LOT vowel: job, on, put on, got, office, sorry, from,

GOOSE vowel: new, who, lunatic, goose, goose‟s, huge, futile

FOOT vowel: could, woman, foot, would, to, liverpudlians

TRAP vowel: happy, animal, began, Harrison, trap, back, managed

DRESS vowel: well, territory, dress, headed, letter1, letter2, vet, tend

SQUARE vowel: square, there, rare, millionaire, fair

For Scottish English:

PALM vowel: started, palm, bath, can‟t, Glasgow

STRUT vowel: hurry, picked up, suffering, strut, much, but

NURSE vowel: nurse, working, deserted, her, work, bird

SCHWA: nearer, her, her, herself, mirror, woman, letter, surprising

FLEECE vowel: street, fleece, disease, see, feel, even

KIT vowel: territory, territory, working, deserted, district, mirror, happy, sorry, liking,

story, near

FORCE vowel: story, north, more, form, normally, lawyer, thought

LOT vowel: job, on, washed, got, sorry, for, was

GOOSE vowel: you, huge, duke, new, goose, soon, lunatic

FOOT vowel: put, woman, foot, would, to

TRAP vowel: happy, animal, began, Harrison, trap, back, managed, that

DRESS vowel: well, territory, felt, stressed, checked, letter, vet, herself

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SQUARE vowel: square, there, rare, millionaire, fair

For Estuary English:

PALM vowel: started, palm, bath, can‟t

STRUT vowel: hurry, picked up, suffering, strut, much, but, come

NURSE vowel: nurse, working, deserted, superb, her

SCHWA: nearer, owner, a bowl, herself, mirror, woman, letter, surprising, remember

FLEECE vowel: street, fleece, disease, see, feel, even

KIT vowel: veterinary, working, daily, district, mirror, happy, kit, deserted

FORCE vowel: story, north, more, form, normally, before, thought, force, morning

LOT vowel: job, on, porridge, got, office, dog, for

GOOSE vowel: you, who, zoo, huge, new, goose, lunatic

FOOT vowel: put, woman, foot, would, to, to, could

TRAP vowel: happy, animal, began, Harrison, trap, back, managed

DRESS vowel: well, territory, felt, stressed, checked, letter, vet, herself

SQUARE vowel: square, there1, there2, rare, millionaire, fair

As far as the SQUARE vowels is concerned this may be pronounced differently in

different accents as for example / skwɛːə /, /skwɛə/, or /skwɛː/. We are interested in the

sound / ɛː/ since we want to compare this sound with its short counterpart as in DRESS.

5.1.1 Collecting the data

We prepared a table where all tokens with the measured data were written. For each

vowel in each accent we had all words with that vowel taken from the written text of the

recordings. Then in the recordings we measured the length of the vowel sound (in sec),

and we took the following data generated by PRAAT: F1 (first formant value in Hz), F2

(second formant value in Hz), F3 (third formant value in Hz), amplitude (in Hz), and

pitch (in Hz). We also marked if the concerned vowel sound was in a stressed syllable

(marked "+" for a stressed syllable), word final position (marked "+" for a word final

position), and we marked its nasality (marked "+" for nasality).

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For the comparison the vowels were put into pairs which are considered to be distinct

in tenseness. Long vowels represent ´tense´ vowels and short vowels represent ´lax´

vowels. The following vowels were included:

/aː/ - /ʌ/ /ɔː/ - /ɒ/ /uː/ - /ʊ/

/ɜː/ - /ə/ /iː/ - /ɪ/ /ɛ/ - /ɛː/

The procedure of getting the data was done by hand. By listening we first selected the

syllable containing the sound concerned. The start and the end of the selected section

were chosen by listening making sure that the sound did not include the preceding and

the following sound. The process of selecting the concerned sound was done repeatedly.

In case of long vowels it was less difficult than in the case of short vowels. First we

selected the syllable containing the sound. By this selection the PRAAT gives a detailed

picture of the waveform of the concerned syllable. We zoomed out the waveform to get a

broader sound sample and designated the boundaries of the chosen vowel sound. In this

part of the procedure the visual information is very important as we mark the boundary

where the wave. This step gave again the selected sound. By listening we were

continuously checking the sound. Again we zoomed out to get the picture including not

only the boundaries but also the immediately preceding and following shapes of the

waveforms at the same time checking the sound. This procedure lasted until we got a

pure vowel sound without preceding and following sounds. The accurateness was

checked not only by listening but also by the shape of the waveforms.

In the case of short vowels we first selected the desired word and then within the

word we marked the approximate boundaries of the syllable according to the wave shape

and listening. When the syllable was selected we listened to the selected sound and

adjusted the boundaries in the way that no preceding and following sound could be heard.

Then we zoomed out the waveform and adjusted the boundaries of the waveform. If it

was necessary we moved the boundary so that it did not include the part of the waveform

that was visibly different from the regular shape (e.g. to ensure that no part of silence was

assigned as a part of the vowel sound). Sometimes the process of choosing the syllable

sound was very time consuming especially in cases like e.g. the /ɒ/ sound in the phrase

77

later on. The neighbouring sonorants r and n made it difficult to mark the boundaries by

listening, and the spectrogram and the waveform did not provide much help because the

formants are not separated as both r and n, being sonorous, have visible formants.

Nevertheless, by repeating the actions of zooming out and in by constant listening and

checking the changes in the waveforms we were able to select the desired sound. As a

double-check, after selecting the sound we always zoomed out the waveform and tried to

move one or both boundaries a smallest possible bit further towards the neighbouring

sound to make sure whether by such little movement the quality of the vowel changed. If

it did not change we kept this new boundary as valid. If the sound changed (by the

influence of the neighbouring sound) we moved the boundary back at its previous

position. We checked the sound before final selection. For the most accurate boundary

marking it is essential to work with both audio and visual information and constantly

check the interplay of the formant visibility, the shape of the wave and the sound itself.

Having selected the vowel itself we let the Praat software mark the start and the end

of the selection by moving the start of selection to the nearest zero crossing and moving

the end of selection to the nearest zero crossing. Then we marked the duration of the

sound. The next step was taking the values of F1, F2, F3, intensity, and pitch from the

midpoint of the vowel duration. The midpoint was selected by Praat. After recording the

values, the same was done for the point of the maximum intensity of the vowel. In several

cases the midpoint was also the point of the maximum intensity. All data were recorded

in excel sheets.

Our samples are authentic utterances including a read part of a text as well as a fluent

short speech where the correspondent talks about his/her city, holiday plans, travel, social

life, etc. Some tokens were selected from the read part and some from the spoken part.

The total number of tokens is 347. Although originally we planned to have an equal

number of tokens for each sound in each accent, some of the tokens had to be excluded

from the analysis for their unclear audio realization – it was difficult to mark the

boundaries of the entire vowel sound in the spectrogram.

The following table shows the number of tokens for each sound in each accent:

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For RP:

sound aː ʌ ɜː ə iː ɪ ɔː o uː ʊ æ ɛ ɛː

number of tokens 5 7 4 7 5 12 7 6 5 6 7 6 5

For Scouse:

sound aː ʌ ɜː ə iː ɪ ɔː o uː ʊ æ ɛ ɛː

number of tokens 4 5 5 6 6 8 8 7 7 7 7 8 5

For Scottish English:

sound aː ʌ ɜː ə iː ɪ ɔː o uː ʊ æ ɛ ɛː

number of tokens 5 6 6 8 6 11 7 8 6 6 8 8 5

For Estuary:

sound aː ʌ ɜː ə iː ɪ ɔː o uː ʊ æ ɛ ɛː

number of tokens 4 7 5 9 6 9 9 7 7 8 7 8 6

Except /æ/, the pairs fall into the long-short distinction. First we wanted to see if there

is a significant difference in length between the pairs and how this difference is realized

in different accents. To see this we compared the means of the values using the T-test

with either equal or unequal variance after performing the F-test for equality of variance.

5.1.2 Statistical Methods

In order to select a suitable statistical method it is important to know the distribution

of data. Since in our analysis we have two categories which we want to compare (and see

if there is a significant difference between them) we have a choice of a parametric test

called T-test or a non-parametric test. Whether a parametric or non-parametric test should

be used depends on the distribution of the data. For data with Gaussian distribution (bell-

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shaped) a parametric test is suitable while for data which do not have Gaussian

distribution a non-parametric test should be used.

It is not easy to determine whether the data come from a Gaussian population or not

in case of small samples. Even formal tests have little power to discriminate between

Gaussian and non-Gaussian distributions.

Since we could not determine with certainty whether our data come from a Gaussian

distribution or not we applied both parametric T-test and non-parametric Mann-Whitney

test and compared the results.

In case of small samples when a parametric test with data from a non-Gaussian

population is used we can't rely on the “p” value, it may be inaccurate.

On the other hand, when a nonparametric test with data from a Gaussian population is

used, the “p” value tends to be too high. The nonparametric tests lack statistical power

with small samples.

Although we used both parametric and non-parametric tests, for the evaluation of the

results we decided to consider the results of the non parametric test. Our decision was

based on the assumption that risking higher p-values (in case that the test should have

been parametric) is in our case less serious than risking inaccurate p-value (in the

opposite case).

5.1.3 T-test

The independent variables are the vowel types. They have two values: tense and lax.

Dependent variables are: length, F1, F2, and F3. For each dependent variable a separate

T- test was performed. The T-test compares the mean values of each of the two groups

(called populations in statistics). The null hypothesis means that there is no significant

difference in the means of the two populations at the given probability level. For

example, for the dependent variable of length, the null hypothesis means that between the

means of the length values for a short and a long vowel there is no significant difference

(at the given probability level). What is the probability level and when do we accept the

null hypothesis? We have to consider the probability of error, i.e. how many times out of

100 we are willing to be wrong if we reject the null hypothesis. This given probability is

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called the alpha level. Usually the alpha level is set to 0.05, which means that in case we

reject the null hypothesis we accept the probability of error 5%. We accept the null

hypothesis if the difference between the two populations is less than certain distance from

zero. If the difference in the means is large enough it is most likely that the means come

from two different populations. In order to consider which hypothesis to accept the

computation assumes that the null hypothesis is true. The null hypothesis is represented

by zero. The t-test calculates the differences of the means and how far from the zero they

are. If the difference in means is too far from zero, the null hypothesis is rejected and the

alternative hypothesis is accepted. The alpha level sets the level at which the results are

different enough to reject the null hypothesis. When a t-test is performed, the difference

of the two sample means is used to calculate the t-statistic. This is compared with the t-

critical value. The t-critical value can be found from a table or is given by statistical

software. The t-critical value is the cutoff between accepting and rejecting the null

hypothesis. If the t-critical value is greater than the t-statistic value, the null hypothesis

(no difference between the means) is retained.

If the t-test shows that there is a significant difference between the means of the

values for length we can say that length is a justified distinctive feature for the vowels in

question. Similarly, the t-test was used for first formant values to compare the pairs of

vowels and their F1 means, then for the second formant values and the third formant

values. We compared separately the values taken at the point of maximum intensity of

the vowels and values taken at the temporal mid-point of the vowels.

5.1.4 Mann-Whitney test

We applied a non-parametric test for unpaired values also called the Mann-Whitney

test. This test as opposed to T-test compares the ranks of medians (not the mean values of

the two groups). The relevant parameter is the U-value. The test calculates U for each

group separately and the U-value is the smallest of the values. This is then compared with

a tabulated U (U critical). If the U statistical (the computed U-value) is smaller or equals

the critical U then the two groups are significantly different.

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To perform the test we used a free trial version of GraphPad Instat version 3.10

downloaded from the internet website: http://www.graphpad.com/demos/.

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6 Results and Discussion

6.1 Results of the statistical tests

The tables below show the results for the values taken at the temporal midpoint of the

vowels. The T-test results are on the left and the Mann -Whitney test results are on the

right.

T-tests: Mann-Whitney tests:

RP: temporal midpoint values:

pair F1 F2 F3 length pair F1 F2 F3 length

/aː/ - /ʌ/ - - - + /aː/ - /ʌ/ - - - +

/ɜː/- /ə/ + - - + /ɜː/- /ə/ + - - +

/iː/ - /ɪ/ + - - + /iː/ - /ɪ/ + + - +

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ + - - - /ɔː/ - /ɒ/ + - - -

/uː/ - /ʊ/ - - - - /uː/ - /ʊ/ - - - +

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ - - - - /ɛ/ -/ɛː/, /ɛːə/ - - - -

SCOUSE: temporal midpoint values:

pair F1 F2 F3 length pair F1 F2 F3 length

/aː/ - /ʌ/ + + - - /aː/ - /ʌ/ + + - +

/ɜː/- /ə/ + + - + /ɜː/- /ə/ + + - +

/iː/ - /ɪ/ + + + + /iː/ - /ɪ/ + + + +

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ + + - - /ɔː/ - /ɒ/ + + - +

/uː/ - /ʊ/ - + + + /uː/ - /ʊ/ - + + +

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ + + - + /ɛ/ -/ɛː/, /ɛːə/ + + - +

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T-tests: Mann-Whitney tests:

SCOTTISH E.: temporal midpoint values:

pair F1 F2 F3 length pair F1 F2 F3 length

/aː/ - /ʌ/ + - - + /aː/ - /ʌ/ + - - +

/ɜː/- /ə/ - + - + /ɜː/- /ə/ - + - +

/iː/ - /ɪ/ + + - + /iː/ - /ɪ/ + + - +

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ - - - - /ɔː/ - /ɒ/ - - - -

/uː/ - /ʊ/ - + - + /uː/ - /ʊ/ - + - +

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ - - + - /ɛ/ -/ɛː/, /ɛːə/ + - + -

ESTUARY E. : temporal midpoint values:

pair F1 F2 F3 length pair F1 F2 F3 length

/aː/ - /ʌ/ - + - + /aː/ - /ʌ/ - + - +

/ɜː/- /ə/ + - - + /ɜː/- /ə/ + - - +

/iː/ - /ɪ/ + + - + /iː/ - /ɪ/ + + - +

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ - - - + /ɔː/ - /ɒ/ - - - +

/uː/ - /ʊ/ - + - + /uː/ - /ʊ/ - + - +

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ + - - - /ɛ/ -/ɛː/, /ɛːə/ + - - -

As can be seen from the tables above, five out of 24 pairs showed different results by

the Mann-Whitney test.

We did not want to build any conclusion based on such small samples so we decided

to double the existing data and perform the test again as a quick remedy with doubled

samples. So the original data were used twice for each sample and the results were

compared. The results of the Mann-Whitney test with the original data and the Mann-

Whitney test with doubled data are compared below:

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Mann-Whitney tests:

original data: doubled data:

RP: temporal midpoint values:

pair F1 F2 F3 length pair F1 F2 F3 length

/aː/ - /ʌ/ - - - + /aː/ - /ʌ/ - + - +

/ɜː/- /ə/ + - - + /ɜː/- /ə/ + - - +

/iː/ - /ɪ/ + + - + /iː/ - /ɪ/ + + - +

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ + - - - /ɔː/ - /ɒ/ + - - -

/uː/ - /ʊ/ - - - + /uː/ - /ʊ/ - + - +

/ɛ/ -/ɛː/, /ɛːə/ - - - - /ɛ/ -/ɛː/, /ɛːə/ - - - -

original data:

doubled data:

SCOUSE: temporal midpoint values:

pair F1 F2 F3 length pair F1 F2 F3 length

/aː/ - /ʌ/ + + - + /aː/ - /ʌ/ + + - +

/ɜː/- /ə/ + + - + /ɜː/- /ə/ + + - +

/iː/ - /ɪ/ + + + + /iː/ - /ɪ/ + + + +

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ + + - + /ɔː/ - /ɒ/ + + - +

/uː/ - /ʊ/ - + + + /uː/ - /ʊ/ - + + +

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ + + - + /ɛ/ -/ɛː/, /ɛːə/ + + - +

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Mann-Whitney tests:

original data: doubled data:

SCOTTISH E.: temporal midpoint values:

pair F1 F2 F3 length pair F1 F2 F3 length

/aː/ - /ʌ/ + - - + /aː/ - /ʌ/ + + - +

/ɜː/- /ə/ - + - + /ɜː/- /ə/ - + - +

/iː/ - /ɪ/ + + - + /iː/ - /ɪ/ + + - +

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ - - - - /ɔː/ - /ɒ/ - + - +

/uː/ - /ʊ/ - + - + /uː/ - /ʊ/ - + - +

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ + - + - /ɛ/ -/ɛː/, /ɛːə/ + - + -

original data: doubled data:

ESTUARY E. : temporal midpoint values:

pair F1 F2 F3 length pair F1 F2 F3 length

/aː/ - /ʌ/ - + - + /aː/ - /ʌ/ - + - +

/ɜː/- /ə/ - - - + /ɜː/- /ə/ + - - +

/iː/ - /ɪ/ + + - - /iː/ - /ɪ/ + + - +

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ - - - + /ɔː/ - /ɒ/ - - - +

/uː/ - /ʊ/ - + - + /uː/ - /ʊ/ + + - +

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ + - - - /ɛ/ -/ɛː/, /ɛːə/ + - - +

To recapitulate, we have three different kinds of results:

results from the T-test,

results from the Mann-Whitney unpaired test, and finally

results from the Mann-Whitney unpaired test with doubled data.

For the reasons already mentioned above, we decided to work with the results of the non-

parametric Mann-Whitney test with doubled data.

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6.2 Evaluation

As mentioned earlier, all vowels were measured at two different points in the

spectrogram: at the temporal midpoint and at the point of maximum intensity. In most

cases the point of maximum intensity was at a slightly different place than the temporal

midpoint, and showed different values. For the evaluation of the results we used the data

from the temporal midpoint because they showed more consistency.

In case of vowels with a relatively long duration, the space of the vowel sound in the

spectrogram is quite large and it is essential for an analysis to know which point should

be selected for measuring. The nearer to the edge of a sound the more influence from the

preceding or following sound can be seen. In order to avoid the effect of the neighboring

sounds on the concerned vowel it is best to measure the values at the temporal midpoint

of the vowel. In case of short vowels it is difficult to avoid the influence of the

neighboring sounds. This problem arises especially in a fluent speech or reading in a

natural speed in which cases the liaison of sounds makes it complicated to separate one

particular sound. On the other hand, research of sounds should include fluent rapid

speech with all its peculiarities rather than separately pronounced words or sentences.

Authenticity of an utterance is a very important aspect in speech analyses and sound

investigation.

The results of our analysis based on the Mann-Whitney test for unpaired values with

doubled data which are presented in the tables above can be interpreted in the following

way:

The /aː/ - /ʌ/ pair:

Accent: RP:

The first formant showed no significant difference, which means that there is no

significant difference in the vowel height. There is a significant difference in the second

formant which implies a difference in the vowel backness. /aː/ is fronter than /ʌ/. The

test also showed a significant difference in length. This means that the length

differentiates their phonological meaning and the two vowels can be distinguished by

their length in addition to the backness.

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So, based on our results we can claim that in RP English words cup and carp are different

in length and the vowel backness.

Accent: Scouse:

First two formants (F1 and F2) are significantly different. This means that /aː/ and

/ʌ/ differ both in the vowel height and backness. The PALM vowel is much lower and a

bit more front than the STRUT vowel.

The realization of the STRUT vowel is close to the realization of the FOOT vowel.

This is typical for northern British accents. In Scouse the STRUT vowel lies between

FOOT and FORCE. The length is significantly different too, so in Scouse we can

distinguish the /aː/ and /ʌ/ vowels by their length in addition to the height and

backness.

Accent: Scottish E.:

First two formant values are significantly different. So, there is a significant

difference in the vowel height and backness. The difference in the vowel frontness is

small. The PALM vowel is lower and it is almost as low as the TRAP vowel. The

STRUT vowel is higher than the PALM vowel and more back than the PALM vowel.

The test for length also showed a significant difference.

Accent: Estuary English:

First formant values did not show a significant difference but second formant values

did. This implies that the pair is not distinguished by the vowel height but it is different as

for the vowel backness. The PALM vowel is more front than the STRUT vowel. This

pair is also distinguished by the length. The difference between the two sounds is realized

in a similar way as in RP.

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The /ɜː/ - /ə/ pair ː

Accent: RP:

The NURSE vowel differs from /ə/ not only in the first formant (the vowel height),

but also in length. The NURSE vowel is higher than schwa. The length might be

considered a distinctive feature. If, for example, the word lurk was said very shortly, it

might be easily understood as look. If a person makes the length of lurk distinct enough,

he/she can ensure better comprehension for a listener.

Accent: Scouse:

The Liverpool accent is known for fronting the NURSE letter. The results showed

three significantly different values: F1, F2, and length. Scouse /ɜː/ is similar to the sound

in RP‟s hair. The NURSE vowel is more front and lower than schwa.

Accent: Scottish E.:

The NURSE vowel is significantly different from schwa by the backness and length.

Schwa is fronter and slightly (but not significantly) higher than the NURSE vowel.

Accent: Estuary E.:

The results are same as for RP. The two sounds are significantly different in the

height, and the length. The NURSE vowel is extremely low (almost as TRAP ) while

schwa is central.

The /iː/ - /ɪ/ pair:

Accent: RP, Scouse, Scottish E, Estuary E.:

In all four accents the results showed that /i /ː and /ɪ/ are significantly different both

in the height and the backness. /i /ː is higher and more front than /ɪ/. /i /ː is also

significantly longer than /ɪ/.

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The /ɔː / - /ɒ/ pair:

Accent: RP:

In RP the two sounds differ in F1 (the vowel height). /ɔː / is higher than /ɒ/ .The

backness is not significantly different. The length is not significantly different either.

Words like dawn and Don can be homonyms.

Accent: Scouse:

The values of the first two formants are significantly different. This means that the

height and backness of /ɔː / and /ɒ/ are different in Scouse. /ɔː / is higher and more back.

The length is also significantly different, so the length can be considered a distinctive

feature for FORCE and LOT vowels in Scouse.

Accent: Scottish E.:

F1 values did not differ significantly so the pair is not distinguished by the vowel

height. F2 values were significantly different, so the two vowels are different in backness.

The LOT vowel is fronter. Apart from the vowel quality, length is also significantly

different.

Accent: Estuary E.:

Estuary English is the only accent from selected accents which showed a significant

difference only in length for /ɔː / and /ɒ/. All three results (T-test, Mann-Whitney test,

and Mann-Whitney test with doubled data) showed the same results. The two vowels

were differentiated by length only.

The /uː/ - /ʊ/ pair:

Accent: RP:

The /uː/ and /ʊ/ vowels in RP showed a significant difference in the second formant.

This means that in RP the vowel height is not significantly different but the vowel

backness is. The GOOSE vowel is fronter. The length showed a significant difference as

well.

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Accent: Scouse:

In Scouse the first formant results were not significantly different, so the vowel height

is not significantly distinct. But the second and the third formants showed a significant

difference which means that at least the vowel backness is significantly different. The

GOOSE vowel is fronter. Also the length showed a significant difference.

Accent: Scottish E.:

In Scottish English the results were similar to RP. The difference was evident in the

second formant values, which represent the vowel backness - /uː/ is fronter than /ʊ/, and

there is also significant difference in length. The third formant values were also different

but F3 does not seem to play a significant role in the vowel height or backness features.

Accent: Estuary E.:

The two vowels, /uː/ and /ʊ/ are significantly different in the vowel height, backness

and length. The GOOSE vowel in Estuary English is typically much fronted and high

which was confirmed by the values of the first and second formants. The lower the first

formant the higher the vowel is. The lower the second formant, the more back the vowel

is. We can see in the table that the difference in the vowel height is not extremely big,

although there is some. But the difference in the second formant is obvious at first sight.

Relatively high values for the /uː/ indicate that the GOOSE vowel in Scouse is much

more fronted than the FOOT vowel.

F1: F2:

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

new 304 could 409 new 1870 could 939

who 371 woman 435 who 1229 woman 905

lunatic 373 foot 473 lunatic 1192 foot 864

goose´s 466 would 398 goose´s 1320 would 1140

goose 381 lunatic 355 goose 1873 lunatic 1692

huge 384 to 228 huge 2378 to 1213

futile 379 liverpudlians 479 futile 2125 liverpudlians 1180

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For a better scheme we will present the F2 values of Estuary FLEECE and KIT

vowels where we can compare the F2 values with the GOOSE vowel F2.

Estuary F2 for KIT vowel: Estuary F2 for GOOSE vowel:

carrier ɪ carrier uː

been 1779 new 1870

territory 1968 who 1229

territory 2034 lunatic 1192

very 2118 goose´s 1320

happy 1311 goose 1873

picked 1976 huge 2378

story 2213 futile 2125

headed 1923

Very similar values indicate that the GOOSE vowel is almost as front as the KIT

vowel. Although in other accents the difference in backness of /uː/ and /ʊ/ is realized too

it is not as evident as in Estuary English where /uː/ is almost as front as /ɪ/.

The /ɛ/ - /ɛː/ pair:

Accent: RP:

The /ɛ/ - /ɛː/ did not show any significant difference in either of the measured

parameters. So we can suppose there is no significant difference in the vowel height or

backness. Length was not distinguished either.

Accent: Scouse:

For the /ɛ/ and /ɛː/ pair the length is significantly different in Scouse. So are the first

two formants, so the vowel height and the vowel backness are significantly different. The

SQUARE vowel is higher and fronter.

Accent: Scottish E.:

F1 showed significantly different values so there is a difference in the vowel height.

The SQUARE vowel is higher. F2 showed no significant difference. The vowel backness

is not differentiated. Length is not significantly different.

Accent: Estuary E.:

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The first formant values showed a significant difference, so the sounds differ in the

vowel height. The SQUARE vowel is higher. F2 showed no significant difference, so

there is no difference in the vowel backness. The length showed a significant difference.

/ɛ/ was significantly shorter than /ɛː/.

6.3 Tense/lax versus high/low

We tested the hypothesis that tenseness in English is not a phonemic feature which

distinguishes the English vowels. The quality of vowels is distinguished by articulation

mechanisms which control vowel height and backness. We can not claim that tenseness is

a feature that correlates only to the vowel height, as some phoneticians present it, because

some vowel pairs were not significantly different in height. Those pairs were

distinguished by backness, though. There was one pair of all investigated pairs which

showed no difference at all (height, backness, and length) – RP´s DRESS – SQUARE

pair. We will examine this particular pair further in following sections.

We will now give a survey of individual accents and how the vowel pairs are

differentiated acoustically. We will see which of the pairs are not distinguished by height

but are distinguished by backness.

Let us have a look at RP results:

The pairs PALM-STRUT and GOOSE-FOOT are significantly different in backness

but not in height. It does not mean that they are of the same height level but the

difference in height is not significant as opposed to backness difference. The pairs

THOUGHT-LOT and NURSE-LETTER are significantly different in height. The vowel

pair FLEECE-KIT is significantly different both in height and backness.

DRESS-SQUARE pair in RP did not prove to be different in all parameters. RP is a

non-rhotic accent and the typical realization of the SQUARE vowel is without the schwa

sound at the end. So, for example, words like fair, there, hair, or wear are pronounced as

/fɛː/, /ðɛː/, /hɛː/, /wɛː/ while in broad London speech they would sound as /fɛə/, /ðɛə/,

/hɛə/, /wɛə/.

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The results of Scouse:

All vowel pairs except /u:/ - /ʊ/ were significantly different in height. The pair /u:/ -

/ʊ/ was significantly different in backness but not in height.

The results of Scottish English:

The following pairs of vowels were significantly different in backness but not in

height: NURSE – schwa, THOUGHT – LOT, and GOOSE – FOOT.

In Estuary English which is also a non-rhotic accent the DRESS-SQUARE vowels

were different in F1. The SQUARE vowel was higher than the DRESS vowel.

Not surprisingly other accents had slightly different results from RP due to qualitative

changes in their vowel inventories. For example in Scouse the NURSE vowel is almost

identical with the SQUARE vowel (Mann-Whitney U test: for F1 p=1, for F2 p=0.4, and

for length p=0.7).

Nevertheless, speakers of other accents also differentiate their „tense/lax‟ vowel pairs

by height or backness or both.

6.4 Tense/lax versus long/short

Should we regard the tenseness a distinctive feature, then the tenseness should be the

only distinguishable element between the concerned vowels. But if there is a difference in

length or F1, or F2, then the concerned vowels can be distinguished either by length,

height, or frontness, and there is no need for the tenseness feature as a distinctive feature.

In the procedure of evaluating the results of the analysis we took the following

strategy: Let us suppose that the so called tense/lax vowels, which are often said to

represent the long/short opposition, show a significant difference in length. Then it is

possible to identify those vowels in terms of length and call them long and short instead

of tense and lax. The length could be considered a valid distinctive feature for those pairs

of vowels which show a significant difference in the tests for length. Since a distinctive

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feature should be universal and applicable to the whole vowel inventory the fact that

some vowels are significantly different in length does not justify us to use it as a

distinctive feature if some other vowels are not distinguished by length.

So, what if the test shows that there is no significant difference in length? Then the

length could not be a valid distinctive feature and we should consider some other

measurable differences in the quality of vowels which would distinguish the tense/lax

opposition. These measurable differences could be differences in the vowel height or

vowel backness. Nevertheless, it is sometimes a very difficult task to determine the cause

of the length equality in those pairs which in a steady position show the length difference.

Thus we should investigate why a pair such as /ɛ/ and /ɛː/did not show a difference in

length when commonly the DRESS vowel is regarded as a short vowel and the SQUARE

vowel as long. In order to determine the reason of length inconsistencies we will look at

some prosodic features which we will focus on in the next section of this chapter. If we

can prove that the length inconsistency was due to prosodic features we could possibly

acknowledge length as a phonemic feature.

To revise our results we can say that our speakers differentiate the „tense/lax‟ pairs by

length except for DRESS-SQUARE pair in which case the RP speaker and Scottish

English speaker did not make the difference in length. This prevents us from claiming

that length could be a phonemic feature for British English vowels. The reasons why this

pair of vowels was not distinguished in these two speakers can not be explained in a

consistent way. It requires further detailed study of rules conditioning the vowel length in

order to understand its phonological role. We will concentrate on this issue in the section

dealing with prosody.

Nevertheless the length analysis showed that at least one part of the tenseness

definition is violated – the one which claims that tense vowels are long and lax vowel are

short. In this case the DRESS vowel which is supposed to be lax should be short, which

was not the case for RP and Scottish English. In literature we can often see that this

vowel is regarded as lax as opposed to /eɪ/. Obviously the quality of /eɪ/is different

from /ɛ/, and there is no reason to differentiate diphthongs and monophthongs by a

feature as tenseness.

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Another problem arises with the definition that claims that lax vowels are always

checked (occurring in a closed syllable) when stressed. In other words if they are stressed

they must be checked. In case of DRESS vowel it is a phonological rule that the vowel

/ɛ/ is stressed because if not stressed it would be reduced to either schwa or /ɪ/:

(penetrate /’pɛnətrɛɪt/, record: /’rɛkɔːd/ or /rɪ’kɔːd/, rebel /’rebl/ or

/rɪ’b ɛl/). But, if we are willing to accept the above mentioned fact about lax vowels then

/ɛ/ must be lax because it is checked when stressed. But lax are short and /ɛ/ was not

short according to our data.

6.5 Influence of prosody on vowel length

The speakers of all four accents realized the distinction in length for almost all

„tense/lax‟ pairs. There were three exceptions:

In RP: THOUGHT – LOT and DRESS-SQUARE;

and in Scottish DRESS-SQUARE.

Let us have a closer look at them. First we will discuss the lack of length difference

between THOUGHT and LOT vowels in RP:

In the RP speaker‟s utterance the /ɒ/ sound in the word long (“…wearing a long

raincoat…”) was unexpectedly long. Actually, the sound /ɒ/ was emphasized by

prolongation of the vowel to create an intended purpose in the hearer (emphasizing the

length of the raincoat).

The table below shows the duration of the vowels /ɔː / and /ɒ / (in sec) and their

carriers taken from the RP speaker‟s speech. We are presenting this part of the table in

order to show that in a fluent speech sounds are influenced by prosodic features as was

rather obvious in this case. Although short /ɒ/ has values corresponding to short vowels

the mean value is more corresponding to long vowels due to the word long whose

duration was extremely long comparing to other short vowels:

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

all 0,149 what 0,06

pouring 0,15 off 0,13

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morning 0,1 on 0,08

called 0,1 was 0,12

hall 0,122 long 0,26

before 0,12 wanted 0,07

gaunt 0,1

This speaker purposely prolonged the vowel in the word long in order to create a

better impression of what he was saying. Compared with other values of the short vowel

/ɒ/ (the mean value is 0.092 sec) the vowel in long was 0.26 sec, which is almost three

times longer. This made the mean of the length of LOT vowel higher and consequently

no difference in length between LOT and THOUGHT vowels was present.

We made another calculation after excluding the long carrier with its extremely high

value. The Mann-Whitney test showed a significant difference in length with the p value

= 0.0356. In another calculation we substituted the value 0.26 sec by the mean value

(calculated excluding this value) 0.09. The p value was even lower (p = 0.0102). This

proves that prosodic features should not be neglected in speech sound analyses as they

strongly influence the quality of sounds.

We explained the reason for the lack of length difference in RP /o/-/o:/. Now we will

focus on other two cases of length conformity – RP DRESS and SQUARE vowels:

First we should look back at their durations:

in RP:

/ɛ/ /ɛː:/

american 0,13 air 0,31

sent 0,07 there 0,11

extend 0,14 there 2 0,11

trench 0,12 wearinɡ 0,14

twelve 0,09

dedicated 0,12

said 0,16

We can see that the duration of short /ɛ/ is comparable with long /ɛː:/. One of the

reasons why we got such a result may be small amount of data. But we should consider

some possible reasons for eliminating the differences between vowel sounds.

The quality of the two vowels is acoustically about the same. Furthermore, in our case

there was no difference in length due to excessive length of the “short” /ɛ/. This could be

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explained by consonantal environment and stress conditions. If we want to preserve the

quality of the vowel then the syllable must be stressed as in pretend (first syllable

unstressed → /ɪ/, second syllable stressed → /ɛ/). The stress in English is closely

connected to the duration of the vowel. Stressed syllables are longer than unstressed

syllables. If we look at our data the carriers include the following words: American, sent,

extend, trench, twelve, dedicated, and said. All syllables containing /ɛ/ are stressed. Of

these the words dedicated, American and said had the longest duration of /ɛ/. This may

be due to the consonantal environment. It is generally known that a vowel preceding a

voiced consonant has longer duration than a vowel not followed by a voiced consonant.

Two prolongation factors are combined in these words: stress as one of the prolongation

factor + sonorants as another prolongation factor. This may be the reason why the

duration of /ɛ/ is similar to that of long vowels. It is necessary to mention though that

this was the case only in RP and Standard Scottish English. In other two accents Scouse

and Estuary /ɛ/ was significantly shorter although it was stressed.

If we consider the sonority of the vowel environment (voiced consonants following a

vowel) as a factor influencing the vowel duration we can not provide any evidence that

this was really the main prolongation factor in RP DRESS words because the same

system did not work for Scottish. In Scottish English the tokens well, territory, felt,

stressed, checked, letter, vet, and herself contain many words in voiceless environment

(suggesting that the vowel should be shorter) but it did not prove to be right.:

checked 0,1 sec

letter 0,12 sec

vet 0,15 sec

herself 0,13 sec

If we want to argue that these words are relatively short and thus might require longer

vowel duration (according to some phonological rules of lengthening) we must note that

the same tokens were used in Scouse and Estuary and showed significantly shorter

durations. So this argument can not be applied either.

Thus the inconsistency in the duration of /ɛ/might be mainly due to prosodic or dialectal

reasons.

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As a conclusion of this section we would like to emphasize that in all four accents the

„tense/lax‟ pairs were significantly different in length with the exception of RP‟s

THOUGHT-LOT, RP´s DRESS-SQUARE, and Estuary‟s DRESS-SQUARE pairs.

The RP‟s LOT vowel showed no significant difference in length (compared to

THOUGHT vowel), which was explained by the fact that one of the tokens: the word

long had extremely long vowel duration (exceeding durations of THOUGHT vowels)

thus affecting the median of the whole group of LOT vowels. We explained the reason

for the extraordinary long duration as prosodic one. After excluding the token „long’ from

the calculation the result showed a significant difference in length of THOUGHT and

LOT.

In case of the DRESS-SQUARE pair in RP and Scottish English prosodic features

proved to take a leading role in length determination and smeared the difference between

short and long vowels. We consider this fact as a proof that tenseness does not

correspond to vowel length.

Last but not least is the vowel reduction which occurred in the fluent speech of the RP

speaker in sentences like: I'd taken my school exams, what to do with us, with his

shooting stick, waterproof hat. When the examined word – the carrier of the sound is in

the middle of the utterance rather than at its end it tends to be shorter and reduced (as

opposed to vowels which are in syllables at ends of phrases: they tend to be longer which

is known as prepausal lengthening). For example: /uː/ in my school tends to be longer

and have a different quality than in my school exams; /uː/ in to do tends to be longer

than in to do with us; and shoot tends to be slightly different from /uː/ in with his

shooting stick.

The main factors influencing the phonemic length in such extent that a „short‟ vowel

has duration of a „long‟ vowel are:

Presence of a boundary after the concerned word: e.g.: my school exam… as

opposed to we went to school…(school in second case is longer due to the

following boundary )

Presence of a stress (stressed vowels are longer than unstressed)

Number of syllables (monosyllabic words tend to be longer)

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6.6 Discussion

Tenseness does not correspond to length since it has not been proved that lax vowels are

short. The phonological rules for tenseness feature and length are different. Tenseness as

an articulatory feature has not been proved by research and its acoustic realization in

English is tongue height and backness.

All vowels are taken from a fluent speech. If our analysis shows that a pair of vowels

which is said to be distinct by their tenseness actually differs in one of the formant

frequencies then we can say that tenseness is a redundant phonemic feature because the

two sounds can be distinguished by their formant frequencies. It is proved that the two

first formant frequencies correspond to the vowel height and backness respectively, so a

change in F1 means a different height and a change in F2 means a different backness.

Whether the values which were compared could be considered as different or not was

stated based on the results of non-parametric Mann-Whitney U tests for differences in the

medians. To eliminate statistical errors due to non sufficient amount of data we repeated

the tests with doubled data and compared the two sets of results. Out of 192

measurements nine measurements had different results. More specifically, tests that used

doubled data showed a significant difference in 9 cases where tests with original data

showed no significant difference. Further in our discussion we will consider the results

with doubled data as relevant and the discussion will refer to these results only.

We should keep in mind that our analysis was made using a fluent, fast speech, so the

results should not be applied to dictionary-like sounds. Such sounds are pronounced

carefully with every phoneme ostentatious and distinct and are perfect for teaching

purposes. Less careful pronunciation (such as a spoken utterance) wipes away many of

the distinctions and differences and yet the utterance is not less comprehensible (for

native speakers or experienced users of a language).

In cases of the pairs where there was no significant difference in F1 or F2 (i.e. no

difference in the height or backness), we considered durations of the sounds and

compared the values to see if the sound duration can make a phonemic difference (there

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were 2 cases where F1 and F2 were not significantly different). If the duration in the

tested pairs is significantly different and at the same time there is no significant

difference in F1 or F2 then we might consider the length as a distinctive phonemic

feature. The tenseness as a phonemic feature would be redundant if the vowel pairs are

distinguished by length in a consistent way. A consistent way means that the phonemic

feature should work for other pairs too. There should be certain regularity not just a

random result.

RP´s DRESS vowels were approximately of the same length as SQUARE vowels.

The question arises why the DRESS vowel is as long as the SQUARE vowel and how are

the two distinguished in speech?

First let us consider the phonotactics of the DRESS vowel. In literature this is a lax

vowel. Some authors say that a lax vowel must be checked when it is in a stressed

position. So, the DRESS vowel should be checked when stressed because it is ranked

among lax vowels.

Words like well, pen, smell, hotel, regress, or accept have all a checked vowel /ɛ/.

But this is only true in orthography. And if tenseness concerns phonemes and phonemic

features it should be independent of spelling rules. Regardless the orthography let us

consider words like penny, ferry, helicopter, many, cherry. Helicopter and many have

unchecked /ɛ/, cherry, penny, and ferry have a checked vowel but only if we consider

the orthography. If we take pronunciation as the relevant aspect of syllabification then

they are unchecked. Therefore we can not say that in speech the DRESS-SQUARE

vowels are distinguished by the consonantal environment. The reason why speakers

pronounce the DRESS vowel long might be that they want to distinguish it from a

reduced /ɪ/. In a fluent speech words pin and pen can be easily confused because the KIT

vowel in pin if reduced may sound as the DRESS vowel. But making the DRESS vowel

in the word pen long prevents this confusion. So, we suggest that the reason for

prolongation the DRESS vowel could be to differentiate it from a reduced KIT vowel. It

is not a general rule though and does not apply to all speakers. The prosodic reasons play

an important role too. Generally speaking we notice that speakers use different tools to

differentiate the vowels in their speech as required by the context of the words and the

whole discourse as well as perception conditions and abilities of a hearer. Again, testing

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words separately without their contextual surrounding is useful for providing a theoretical

background for further research. But the results are relevant only if taken from and

applicable to ordinary fluent speech.

Considering our results of the DRESS-SQUARE pair in RP which showed no

acoustic difference we can say that this particular speaker does not differentiate these two

vowels. Despite the absence of an explanation how the two vowels are generally

differentiated in RP our discussion gives a solid base for consideration of the tense – lax

opposition for this vowel pair as irrelevant (cf. lax vowels are checked when stressed, lax

vowels are short).

Looking at all results, except the DRESS-SQUARE vowels in RP and Scottish

English, all other pairs in all accents were significantly different in length. However,

since the difference in length was not consistent we can not claim length to be a

phonemic feature. But we may suggest further research of the length distinction in vowel

pairs using larger corpus and more speakers as our results are based on only 4 speakers of

different accents.

According to our analysis of the tense-lax pairs of vowels, the majority of the vowel

pairs in four different accents were significantly different in height, backness, or length.

If we do not consider the length as a possible phonemic feature which would substitute

tenseness still apart from DRESS and SQUARE vowels other vowel pairs are

significantly different in height or backness.

Although it would be premature to state any rules based on only 4 speakers, it is

possible to see that if one pair (/ɛ/ - /ɛː/) showed no difference in height or backness in

one of the 4 accents and at the same time we can not consider length as a phonemic

feature, we cannot apply tenseness as a distinctive feature either because these sounds

were almost acoustically identical not only by perception but also in the acoustic analysis.

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7 Conclusion

The aim of this research was to test tenseness as a distinctive phonemic feature for

British English vowels. The research was based on the acoustic analysis of British vowels

in fluent authentic utterances of four different native speakers – each of them a

representative of a specific accent. The acoustic analysis focused on the formant

frequencies and the length of the vowel sounds. We built our conclusion considering the

basic physical principles of forming vowel sounds.

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Sound quality is characterized by three different physical properties: amplitude,

fundamental frequency and formant frequencies (auditorily corresponding to loudness,

pitch, and quality). If we regard one particular tone, for example vowel sound /a: /, it can

be said loudly or quietly (at different amplitudes) and still it will be perceived as the same

vowel. The phonemic meaning does not change. We can pronounce /a: / in different

pitches (change the fundamental frequency) and still we will decode the sound as the

same vowel. Its phonemic meaning does not change. But the third property of a sound –

the quality – is a characteristic that changes the meaning of a vowel sound. So, the actual

quality is represented by differences in the complex waveforms. If we suppose that a

phonemic feature is composed by formant frequencies (the other two properties do not

affect a vowel‟s quality), we can say that the quality of a vowel sound is manifested by

individual frequencies of its complex waveform.

In other words, the fundamental frequency and amplitude do not take part in establishing

a phonemic property of a vowel because they can not change its meaning. The meaning

can be changed by the formant frequencies or basic frequencies of individual sine waves

in a complex wave of a sound.

This implies that a change in formant frequencies causes a qualitative change in the

vowel sound. Although not every change in a vowel sound necessarily means also a

phonemic change (at least not for English and many other languages with a 5-vowel

system), it is often true if we put it vice versa: a change in the meaning (a phonemic

change) often means a change in the quality and consequently changes in formant

frequencies. However, this can be applied only in a quasi steady-state manner or in

isolation, for example in laboratory experiments. Vowels produced in such a way should

be regarded as laboratory artifacts (Strange, Verbrugge, Shankweiler, and Edman 1976).

It was confirmed by experiments of Schatz (1954) and Harris (1953) that the quality of a

vowel can not be in a single portion of the syllable but is rather distributed through the

whole period of voicing. In ordinary speech vowel sounds are acoustically fused with the

neighbouring consonants in the process of coarticulation. Therefore formant values of

vowels in ordinary speech can be different from those of individually produced. To

summarize, a change in the meaning (a phonemic change) can but does not have to

change the formant frequencies. Some examples in English include reduced vowels. In an

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unstressed position vowels /ʌ/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /ɔ/, and /ʊ/are often centralized and

their realization is close to schwa.

This work compares the formant frequencies of vowel pairs which in literature are

considered to be distinguished by tenseness.

We excluded length as a feature corresponding to tenseness. It was shown that lax

/ɛ/ was as long as its long counterpart. Duration of vowels is determined by consonantal

environment, stress, word boundaries, number of syllables, and is sensitive to changes

caused by prosodic features.

We will provide some arguments which stand against the implementation of the

tense/lax opposition based on the results of this work.

According to the theory which claims that tense vowels are more peripheral than lax

vowels the tense vowels are: FLEECE, DRESS, TRAP, PALM, FORCE, and FOOT in

RP; FLEECE, NURSE, TRAP, PALM, FORCE, and GOOSE in Scouse; FLEECE,

DRESS, TRAP, PALM, FORCE, and GOOSE in Scottish English; and finally in Estuary

English: FLEECE, FORCE, DRESS, NURSE, and GOOSE. We determined the degree of

periphery from the graphs created from F1 and F2 vowels. The graphs were made in

order to see the spatial distribution of the vowels in different accents. This vowel

distribution does not correspond to the traditional tense-lax categorization.

DRESS, TRAP, and FOOT vowels in RP would be tense according to the periphery

theory but they are traditionally categorized as lax. In Scouse the TRAP vowel does not

correspond to the traditional categorization, in Scottish English DRESS and TRAP

vowels are peripheral (so should be tense but traditionally they are lax), and in Estuary

English DRESS is peripheral (again contrary to the traditional lax categorization of this

vowel).

In the literature the TRAP vowel is presented as lax although it lies on the periphery

in most of the studied accents. Furthermore, according to the theory which says that lax

vowels are always short, the TRAP vowel with its average duration of 0.1msec.

approaches long vowels rather than short ones.

The DRESS vowel is categorized as lax but it lies on the periphery so it should be

considered tense if we regard the way of articulation. Furthermore, in two accents: RP

and Scottish English the length of this vowel had duration of a long vowel.

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If we consider the theory of vowel pairs (e.g. DRESS as opposed to DAY where

DRESS is lax and DAY is tense) we should notice that the created pairs are qualitatively

different as can be seen in the example DRESS – DAY. Vowels differ from diphthongs in

many other ways than „tenseness‟ so it is not necessary to implement the tenseness.

Furthermore, if the DRESS vowel is lax in the literature, its „long version‟ can be found

in the word air. According to the long=tense/short=lax theory, the AIR sound should be

tense as opposed to the DRESS vowel. In RP the AIR sound differs from the DRESS

vowel only in the duration (and even this is not a rule as seen in our speaker who did not

differentiate them at all), because the final schwa is not pronounced. These two sounds do

not differ acoustically and the difference in length is irregular and inconsistent. This leads

to a conclusion that the DRESS vowel does not have a contrasting vowel which would be

different in tenseness. If the final schwa is pronounced in the word AIR than the sound is

a diphthong consisting of the lax DRESS vowel and schwa regarded also as lax. So the

diphthong is made of two lax vowels. There are not any rules which would state that two

lax vowels together make a tense vowel. Furthermore, the AIR sound as a centering

diphthong with its centralized position can not be tense (cf. periphery theory).

Referring to the above given arguments and in order to avoid confusion and

misinterpretation of the tenseness in English phonetics we suggest to present the

tenseness as an acoustic correlate of the height and backness features. Further research

of the length as a phonemic feature might prove that length plays a decisive role in

differentiating the meaning of a word. For example, the word hit can be pronounced in

different heights and it will be still understood by a listener correctly (as for its meaning)

although it may be perceived as pronounced perhaps with an accent not typical for

English. Even if the word hit is pronounced as high as heat, the duration is the main

leader in the identification of the meaning. Although not proved in a consistent way in

our analysis we think that length in English is an important element in the complex of

strategies which speakers use for differentiating their vowels.

This work suggests that the most relevant differentiating feature in English vowels is

the difference in height and backness.

106

Traditional English vowel categorization according to IPA distinguishes four levels of

height (high, mid-high, mid-low, and low) and three levels of backness (front, central,

and back).

Because the differences in „tenseness‟ proved to be differences in height or backness

we might reconsider the vowel distribution and implement more levels for height.

While jaw opening is represented by three levels, tongue height could be

represented by more than three levels, two levels of height within one level of jaw

opening.

The IPA levels might be expanded to: high, near-high; mid-high, mid-low; near

low, and low (based on the assumption that different height levels can be achieved by a

constant jaw position). So, terms close, mid-close, and open would correlate to jaw

position while high, near-high, mid-high…, would correlate to the tongue height.

Within each jaw position there can be two levels of tongue height. So, close vowels

could be high or near-high. Mid-close vowels could be mid-high or mid-low, and open

vowels could be near-low, and low. This suggestion eliminates the number of phonemic

features for English vowels. We would still make a distinction between some of the

„tense/lax‟ pairs which is evident acoustically but these distinctions would be

corresponding to the tongue and jaw positions so there would be no need for another

feature: tenseness.

Thus, for example, /i:/ could be close (in terms of jaw opening) and high in terms of

tongue height, while its „lax‟ counterpart /ɪ/ would be close and near-high. Similarly /u:/

could be categorized as close high vowel (jaw opening and tongue height respectively)

and its counterpart /ʊ/ could belong to the same category of jaw opening (close) but

would be near-high in terms of tongue height. The inventory of the vowels investigated in

this work could look like following with respect to the height:

/iː/ - close high

/ɪ/ - close near-high

/ɛː/ - mid-close mid-high

/ɛ/ - mid-close mid-low

/ʌ/ - open near-low

107

/aː/ - open low

/ɔː/ - mid-close mid-high

/ɒ/ - mid-close mid-low

/uː/ - close high

/ʊ/ - close near-high

/ɜː/ - mid-close mid-high

/ə/ - mid-close mid-low

Adding the backness feature the distribution can look like as follows:

FRONT CENTRAL BACK

CLOSE HIGH iː ------------ uː CLOSE HIGH

CLOSE NEAR-HIGH ɪ ---------------- ʊ CLOSE NEAR-HIGH

MID-CLOSE MID-HIGH ɛː-------ɜː---------- ɔː MID-CLOSE MID-

HIGH

MID-CLOSE MID-LOW ɛ------ ə ----------- ɒ MID-CLOSE MID-

LOW

OPEN NEAR-LOW æ -------------ʌ OPEN NEAR-LOW

OPEN LOW aː OPEN LOW

Last but not least we must bear in mind that the spoken form of any language is in a

constant process of change and the changes which over years or decades become

apparent must be reflected in the phonological rules of the language. Due to this

diachronic aspect of speech a rule which was considered a phonological rule in the past

might not be a valid phonological rule in the future. If we describe the current state of a

spoken language we should allow ourselves to accept changes which have already been

adopted by the majority of speakers.

With this work we would like to contribute to efforts of linguists for precision and

exactness in linguistic terminology. Tenseness as a phonemic feature is a valid feature in

some languages of the world and correlates to specific articulatory settings which have

not been confirmed for the English language. Implementing and using tenseness for

English vowels resulted in ambiguity of the term. Some linguists consider tenseness as a

108

correlate of vowel height, some as a correlate of length, and yet others as a periphery

determiner.

None of these were proved as valid in a consistent way. This work suggests that

tenseness in English is a term expressing differences in vowel height or backness.

APPENDICES: List of appendices:

1. Length data for all pairs in all accents 86

2. First Formant Data from the Vowels´ Mid-point 89

3. First Formant Data from the Point of Vowels´ Maximum intensity 92

4. Second Formant Data from the Vowels´ Mid-point 95

5. Second Formant Data from the Point of Vowels´ Maximum intensity 98

109

6. Third Formant Data from the Vowels´ Mid-point 101

7. Third Formant Data from the Point of Vowels´ Maximum intensity 104

8. Statistical Analysis for RP 107

9. Statistical Analysis for Scouse 108

10. Statistical Analysis for Scottish English 109

11. Statistical Analysis for Estuary 110

12. Tabulated Critical Values 111

13. Transcripts of the corpus: Comma gets a cure 112

14. Transcripts of the corpus: The Rainbow Passage 113

LENGTH RP: in msec.

LENGTH SCOUSE: in msec.

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

archeological 0,1 bunch 0,08 started 0,1 unsanitary 0,07

last 0,14 others 0,09 palm 0,21 picked up 0,06

started 0,175 us 0,08 bath 0,12 suffering 0,07

garden 0,15 Monday 0,07 last 0,08 strut 0,07

past 0,104 mud 0,07 but 0,06

none 0,08

up 0,03

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

110

skirmish 0,155 others 0,095 nurse 0,22 on her 0,1

turf 0,24 american 0,067 working 0,11 a bowl 0,05

word 0,134 excavation 0,07 first 0,15 herself 0,05

first 0,15 enɡland 0,12 work 0,17 surprising 0,05

o´clock 0,1 thirty 0,12 woman 0,06

permission 0,07 letter 0,05

disappeared 0,12

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

sixteen 0,143 sixteen 0,056 street 0,05 been 0,05

weeks 0,15 exams 0,07 fleece 0,1 territory 0,04

medieval 0,18 expression 0,1 disease 0,2 territory 0,06

greenhouses 0,143 isn´t it 0,07 see 0,15 very 0,05

knees 0,152 didn´t 0,06 treatment 0,09 happy 0,04

these 0,16 in England 0,07 immediately 0,14 picked 0,04

civil 0,06 story 0,07

permission 0,05 headed 0,04

houses 0,04

lived 0,07

in 0,05

aristocracy 0,05

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

all 0,149 what 0,06 story 0,16 job 0,09

pouring 0,15 off 0,13 north 0,13 on 0,07

morning 0,1 on 0,08 morning 0,17 put on 0,07

called 0,1 was 0,12 form 0,21 got 0,07

hall 0,122 long 0,26 normally 0,17 office 0,06

before 0,12 wanted 0,07 before 1,19 sorry 0,08

gaunt 0,1 force 0,18 from 0,04

thought 0,13

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

school 0,11 stood 0,08 new 0,08 could 0,04

do 0,1 into 0,09 who 0,1 woman 0,07

two 0,1 to have 0,07 lunatic 0,14 foot 0,06

June 0,21 waterproof 0,11 goose´s 0,12 would 0,05

shooting 0,1 ɡood 0,09 goose 0,12 lunatic 0,08

looked 0,05 huge 0,13 to 0,05

futile 0,06 liverpudlians 0,04

LENGTH RP: in msec.

LENGTH SCOUSE: in msec.

carrier æ carrier æ

exams 0,18 happy 0,06

that´s 0,06 animal 0,1

ancestry 0,11 began 0,06

back 0,16 Harrison 0,06

111

Lamport 0,08 trap 0,05

have 0,14 back 0,1

hat 0,06 managed 0,1

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

american 0,13 air 0,31 well 0,03 square 0,2

sent 0,07 there 0,11 territory 0,06 there 0,14

extend 0,14 there 2 0,11 dress 0,09 rare 0,17

trench 0,12 wearinɡ 0,14 headed 0,07 millionaire 0,18

twelve 0,09 letter1 0,05 fair 0,12

dedicated 0,12 letter2 0,06

said 0,16 vet 0,11

tend 0,07

LENGTH SCOTTISH in msec. LENGTH ESTUARY: in msec.

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

started 0,08 hurry 0,07 started 0,13 hurry 0,06

palm 0,16 picked up 0,05 palm 0,18 picked up 0,05

bath 0,16 suffering 0,05 bath 0,14 suffering 0,05

can´t 0,08 strut 0,07 can´t 0,09 strut 0,06

Glasgow 0,14 much 0,07 but 0,05

but 0,04 much 0,14

come 0,06

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

nurse 0,09 nearer 0,06 nurse 0,14 nearer 0,11

working 0,06 her 0,07 working 0,09 owner 0,08

deserted 0,1 her 0,05 deserted 0,14 a bowl 0,04

her 0,08 herself 0,04 superb 0,16 herself 0,04

work 0,06 mirror 0,09 her 0,04 mirror 0,08

bird 0,1 woman 0,05 woman 0,06

letter 0,05 letter 0,04

surprising 0,04 surprising 0,04

remember 0,03

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

street 0,07 territory 0,07 street 0,13 veterinary 0,08

fleece 0,09 territory 0,07 fleece 0,11 working 0,07

disease 0,1 working 0,04 disease 0,15 daily 0,09

see 0,1 deserted 0,03 see 0,1 district 0,06

feel 0,08 district 0,06 feel 0,05 happy 0,07

even 0,1 happy 0,05 even 0,11 mirror 0,08

mirror 0,06 kit 0,12

sorry 0,04 district 0,08

story 0,05 deserted 0,04

liking 0,06

112

near 0,06

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

story 0,1 job 0,1 story 0,12 job 0,14

north 0,11 on 0,5 north 0,13 on 0,05

more 0,1 washed 0,08 more 0,12 porridge 0,08

form 0,09 got 0,08 form 0,09 got 0,06

normally 0,12 washed 0,04 normally 0,11 office 0,08

lawyer 0,1 sorry 0,08 before 0,13 dog 0,11

thought 0,09 for 0,09 thought 0,13 for 0,08

was 0,05 force 0,12

morning 0,12

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

you 0,06 put 0,03 you 0,23 put 0,03

huge 0,13 woman 0,05 who 0,06 woman 0,05

duke 0,06 foot 0,05 zoo 0,2 foot 0,04

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

new 0,09 would 0,03 new 0,1 would 0,04

goose 0,09 lunatic 0,07 goose 0,1 to 0,06

soon 0,08 to 0,04 lunatic 0,08 to 0,05

huge 0,13 who 0,07

carrier æ carrier æ

happy 0,1 happy 0,06

animal 0,14 animal 0,13

began 0,1 began 0,08

Harrison 0,12 Harrison 0,07

trap 0,12 trap 0,07

back 0,15 back 0,11

managed 0,13 managed 0,08

that 0,09

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

well 0,11 square 0,12 well 0,15 square 0,19

territory 0,11 there 0,16 territory 0,09 there 1 0,06

felt 0,1 rare 0,16 felt 0,08 there 2 0,18

stressed 0,06 millionaire 0,1 stressed 0,1 rare 0,13

checked 0,1 fair 0,08 checked 0,07 millionaire 0,13

letter 0,12 letter 0,05 fair 0,13

vet 0,15 vet 0,13

herself 0,13 herself 0,09

113

F1 mid RP: F1 mid SCOUSE:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

archeological 554 bunch 533 started 705 unsanitary 542

last 486 others 497 palm 735 picked up 508

started 480 us 426 bath 997 suffering 431

garden 442 Monday 439 last 764 strut 456

past 478 mud 578 but 499

none 537

up 563

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

skirmish 545 others 476 nurse 640 on her 483

114

turf 482 american 291 working 648 a bowl 480

word 442 excavation 270 first 716 herself 512

first 488 enɡland 463 work 609 woman 544

o´clock 368 thirty 514 letter 577

permission 275 surprising 283

disappeared 389

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

sixteen 372 sixteen 395 street 318 been 421

weeks 385 exams 439 fleece 381 territory 485

medieval 340 expression 363 disease 313 territory 473

greenhouses 341 isn´t it 400 see 452 very 457

knees 372 didn´t 358 treatment 385 happy 436

these 295 in England 444 immediately 446 picked 525

civil 400 story 421

houses 418 headed 493

lived 388

in 399

aristocracy 448

permission 443

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

all 393 what 494 story 481 job 700

pouring 407 off 537 north 564 on 838

morning 440 on 504 morning 525 put on 749

called 383 was 426 form 400 got 762

hall 419 long 562 normally 493 office 722

before 394 wanted 483 before 571 sorry 670

gaunt 426 force 439 from 624

thought 537

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

school 378 stood 420 new 304 could 409

do 365 into 330 who 371 woman 435

two 369 to have 329 lunatic 373 foot 473

June 384 waterproof 358 goose´s 466 would 398

shooting 364 ɡood 447 goose 381 lunatic 355

looked 408 huge 384 to 228

futile 379 liverpudlians 479

F1 mid RP: F1 mid SCOUSE:

carrier æ carrier æ

exams 555 happy 1054

that´s 502 animal 964

ancestry 775 began 928

back 632 Harrison 1005

115

Lamport 830 trap 926

have 665 back 961

hat 548 managed 815

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

american 470 air 436 well 746 square 666

sent 390 there 405 territory 786 there 598

extend 518 there 2 532 dress 813 rare 688

trench 486 wearinɡ 492 headed 782 millionaire 641

twelve 571 letter1 786 fair 510

dedicated 445 letter2 858

said 519 vet 847

tend 743

F1 mid SCOTTISH F1 mid ESTUARY:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

started 663 hurry 607 started 934 hurry 860

palm 691 picked up 600 palm 877 picked up 890

bath 765 suffering 597 bath 808 suffering 952

can´t 700 strut 670 can´t 909 strut 929

Glasgow 657 much 595 but 793

but 522 much 999

come 804

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

nurse 653 nearer 515 nurse 1146 nearer 725

working 595 her 593 working 917 owner 1054

deserted 542 her 592 deserted 990 a bowl 512

her 605 herself 524 superb 904 herself 702

work 618 mirror 668 her 888 mirror 1030

bird 577 woman 418 woman 815

letter 700 letter 663

surprising 457 surprising 638

remember 550

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

street 317 territory 421 street 474 veterinary 590

fleece 317 territory 409 fleece 433 working 441

disease 289 working 489 disease 438 daily 540

see 315 deserted 404 see 489 district 554

feel 369 district 558 feel 480 happy 445

even 352 happy 435 even 427 mirror 843

mirror 630 kit 742

sorry 431 district 586

story 419 deserted 588

liking 390

near 412

116

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

story 423 job 558 story 702 job 699

north 558 on 542 north 746 on 777

more 506 washed 510 more 574 porridge 664

form 546 got 545 form 588 got 703

normally 582 washed 434 normally 809 office 817

lawyer 576 sorry 480 before 710 dog 592

thought 512 for 509 thought 555 for 603

was 416 force 497

morning 733

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

you 389 put 346 you 594 put 869

huge 372 woman 394 who 536 woman 521

duke 373 foot 419 zoo 499 foot 726

new 367 would 371 new 479 would 507

goose 388 lunatic 452 goose 464 to 567

soon 428 to 366 lunatic 629 to 537

huge 428 who 557

could 489

carrier æ carrier æ

happy 754 happy 1044

animal 716 animal 1082

began 615 began 814

Harrison 751 Harrison 867

trap 726 trap 985

back 751 back 1014

managed 677 managed 872

that 745

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

well 544 square 486 well 873 square 913

territory 491 there 530 territory 851 there 1 702

felt 552 rare 396 felt 899 there 2 883

stressed 541 millionaire 457 stressed 906 rare 841

checked 489 fair 434 checked 992 millionaire 867

letter 538 letter 966 fair 869

vet 455 vet 966

herself 509 herself 1064

117

F1 RP: F1 SCOUSE:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

archeological 531 bunch 516 started 695 unsanitary 542

last 504 others 491 palm 742 picked up 521

started 487 us 423 bath 884 suffering 448

garden 481 Monday 449 last 764 strut 456

past 476 mud 508 but 499

none 435

up 570

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

skirmish 489 others 481 nurse 644 on her 677

118

turf 515 american 361 working 632 a bowl 680

word 391 excavation 397 first 577 herself 502

first 480 enɡland 488 work 605 woman 560

o´clock 156 thirty 524 letter 577

permission 275 surprising 376

disappeared 353

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

sixteen 386 sixteen 398 street 320 been 417

weeks 407 exams 435 fleece 388 territory 552

medieval 333 expression 285 disease 330 territory 476

greenhouses 334 isn´t it 392 see 489 very 456

knees 410 didn´t 276 treatment 399 happy 442

these 355 in England 451 immediately 454 picked 525

civil 399 story 493

permission 443 headed 450

houses 391

lived 392

in 399

aristocracy 460

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

all 386 what 486 story 468 job 722

pouring 399 off 483 north 585 on 838

morning 371 on 514 morning 525 put on 691

called 390 was 489 form 400 got 746

hall 409 long 505 normally 510 office 722

before 384 wanted 491 before 551 sorry 651

gaunt 398 force 469 from 630

thought 437

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

school 386 stood 420 who 400 could 409

do 369 into 324 lunatic 345 woman 429

two 368 to have 159 goose´s 454 foot 472

June 370 waterproof 369 huge 385 would 390

shooting 375 ɡood 450 goose 338 lunatic 342

looked 396 futile 379 to 233

liverpudlians 479

F1 RP:

F1 SCOUSE:

carrier æ carrier æ

exams 475 happy 1055

that´s 476 animal 1004

ancestry 655 began 848

back 551 Harrison 1008

119

Lamport 651 trap 883

have 627 back 896

hat 548 managed 816

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

american 423 air 473 well 453 square 670

sent 447 there 417 territory 788 there 494

extend 435 there 2 520 dress 737 rare 646

trench 436 wearinɡ 442 headed 635 millionaire 581

twelve 560 letter1 764 fair 524

dedicated 453 letter2 867

said 509 vet 823

tend 777

F1 SCOTTISH F1 ESTUARY:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

started 687 hurry 607 started 931 hurry 886

palm 625 picked up 600 palm 1000 picked up 880

bath 724 suffering 554 bath 808 suffering 989

can´t 680 strut 597 can´t 866 strut 940

Glasgow 657 much 610 but 793

but 522 much 1070

come 757

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

nurse 632 nearer 475 nurse 1129 nearer 751

working 611 her 616 working 896 owner 1031

deserted 578 her 779 deserted 920 a bowl 524

her 608 herself 524 superb 973 herself 702

work 581 mirror 643 her 888 mirror 1009

bird 555 woman 426 first 952 woman 800

letter 702 letter 663

surprising 457 surprising 638

remember 579

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

street 317 territory 421 street 476 veterinary 610

fleece 324 territory 409 fleece 447 working 302

disease 354 working 489 disease 436 daily 651

see 333 deserted 404 see 530 district 556

feel 366 district 547 feel 580 happy 445

even 356 happy 595 even 435 mirror 801

mirror 634 kit 649

sorry 429 district 640

story 424 deserted 588

liking 412

near 386

120

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

story 446 job 564 story 601 job 745

north 548 on 506 north 749 on 771

more 495 washed 515 more 598 porridge 657

form 531 got 558 form 586 got 669

normally 582 washed 434 normally 819 office 822

lawyer 576 sorry 478 before 611 dog 572

thought 501 for 515 thought 532 for 588

was 399 force 518

morning 623

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

you 397 put 346 you 603 put 943

huge 385 woman 394 who 532 woman 506

duke 369 foot 422 zoo 523 foot 726

new 367 would 371 new 482 would 507

goose 388 lunatic 452 goose 479 to 567

soon 440 to 366 lunatic 646 to 520

huge 447 who 592

could 489

carrier æ carrier æ

happy 754 happy 1118

animal 649 animal 1082

began 615 began 818

Harrison 752 Harrison 823

trap 674 trap 910

back 759 back 912

managed 671 managed 885

that 728

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

well 484 square 462 well 776 square 850

territory 491 there 573 territory 886 there 1 665

felt 551 rare 460 felt 903 there 2 863

stressed 499 millionaire 433 stressed 923 rare 763

checked 489 fair 432 checked 929 millionaire 867

letter 524 letter 829 fair 872

vet 427 vet 916

herself 426 herself 999

121

F2mid RP: F2mid SCOUSE:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

archeological 1202 bunch 1255 started 1098 unsanitary 1108

last 1191 others 1130 palm 1101 picked up 927

started 1295 us 1435 bath 1179 suffering 1017

garden 1221 Monday 1248 last 1175 strut 1018

past 1203 mud 1354 but 826

none 1376

up 1313

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

skirmish 1495 others 1337 nurse 1794 on her 1958

122

turf 1401 american 1293 working 2009 a bowl 1376

word 1464 excavation 1266 first 2234 herself 1522

first 1422 enɡland 1544 work 1963 woman 1208

o´clock 1468 thirty 2078 letter 1696

permission 1340 surprising 1831

disappeared 1634

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

sixteen 1914 sixteen 1864 street 2538 been 1779

weeks 1818 exams 1647 fleece 2032 territory 1968

medieval 1960 expression 1768 disease 2659 territory 2034

greenhouses 1800 isn´t it 1685 see 2518 very 2118

knees 2166 didn´t 1889 treatment 2341 happy 1311

these 2675 in England 1884 immediately 2728 picked 1976

civil 1614 story 2213

permission 1741 headed 1923

houses 1583

lived 1842

in 2112

aristocracy 1605

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

all 998 what 1015 story 1040 job 1129

pouring 874 off 992 north 967 on 1216

morning 1017 on 963 morning 907 put on 1083

called 994 was 1142 form 957 got 1147

hall 788 long 944 normally 1074 office 1126

before 979 wanted 1011 before 1093 sorry 1176

gaunt 945 force 962 from 1072

thought 1047

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

school 1388 stood 1291 new 1870 could 939

do 1444 into 1400 who 1229 woman 905

two 1344 to have 1574 lunatic 1192 foot 864

June 1478 waterproof 1324 goose´s 1320 would 1140

shooting 1682 ɡood 1261 goose 1873 lunatic 1692

looked 1205 huge 2378 to 1213

futile 2125 liverpudlians 1180

F2mid RP:

F2mid SCOUSE:

carrier æ carrier æ

exams 1585 happy 1525

that´s 1411 animal 1663

ancestry 1525 began 1686

back 1538 Harrison 1605

123

Lamport 1449 trap 1510

have 1438 back 1612

hat 1654 managed 1567

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

american 1566 air 1704 well 1340 square 2032

sent 1663 there 1613 territory 1919 there 2045

extend 1814 there 2 1533 dress 1635 rare 2125

trench 1790 wearinɡ 1576 headed 1965 millionaire 2173

twelve 1508 letter1 1626 fair 2015

dedicated 1885 letter2 1842

said 1725 vet 1793

tend 1817

F2 mid SCOTTISH F2 mid ESTUARY:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

started 1245 hurry 1209 started 1278 hurry 1346

palm 1292 picked up 1144 palm 1158 picked up 1329

bath 1303 suffering 1328 bath 1159 suffering 1471

can´t 1596 strut 1209 can´t 1262 strut 1300

Glasgow 1374 much 1129 but 1489

but 1363 much 1304

come 1236

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

nurse 1124 nearer 1347 nurse 1440 nearer 1432

working 1100 her 1166 working 1386 owner 1379

deserted 1141 her 1181 deserted 1583 a bowl 1550

her 1161 herself 1382 superb 1413 herself 1482

work 1047 mirror 1238 her 1458 mirror 1365

bird 1044 woman 1350 woman 1387

letter 1378 letter 1532

surprising 1425 surprising 1543

remember 1666

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

street 2158 territory 1721 street 2217 veterinary 1980

fleece 2365 territory 1930 fleece 1683 working 1603

disease 2187 working 1845 disease 2121 daily 1882

see 2211 deserted 1784 see 2287 district 1553

feel 2172 district 1666 feel 2341 happy 1712

even 2063 happy 2126 even 2331 mirror 1719

mirror 1273 kit 2165

sorry 1702 district 1904

story 1660 deserted 1816

liking 2251

near 1809

124

F2 mid SCOTTISH F2 mid ESTUARY:

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

story 984 job 1023 story 1261 job 1164

north 1014 on 1159 north 1223 on 1352

more 918 washed 965 more 1050 porridge 1251

form 939 got 1068 form 982 got 1285

normally 1058 washed 1248 normally 1023 office 1132

lawyer 963 sorry 1003 before 1186 dog 990

thought 1003 for 944 thought 1011 for 1124

was 1191 force 896

morning 1174

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

you 1877 put 1661 you 2044 put 1257

huge 1761 woman 1395 who 2069 woman 1289

duke 1795 foot 1611 zoo 1931 foot 1527

new 1946 would 1645 new 2487 would 1657

goose 1702 lunatic 1472 goose 2332 to 1837

soon 1734 to 1783 lunatic 2372 to 1151

huge 2416 who 1128

could 1604

carrier æ carrier æ

happy 1225 happy 1462

animal 1583 animal 1421

began 1594 began 1599

Harrison 1445 Harrison 1365

trap 1276 trap 1356

back 1294 back 1507

managed 1284 managed 1521

that 1523

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

well 1552 square 1585 well 1581 square 1526

territory 1789 there 1749 territory 1502 there 1 1381

felt 1481 rare 1837 felt 1510 there 2 1682

stressed 1823 millionaire 1778 stressed 1497 rare 1660

checked 1912 fair 1826 checked 1706 millionaire 1634

letter 1781 letter 1670 fair 1626

vet 1880 vet 1670

herself 1441 herself 1532

125

F2 max RP: F2 max SCOUSE:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

archeological 1230 bunch 1174 started 1090 unsanitary 1108

last 1251 others 1087 palm 1097 picked up 1022

started 1442 us 1481 bath 1408 suffering 1015

garden 1432 Monday 1239 last 1175 strut 1018

past 1127 mud 1403 but 826

none 1513

up 1294

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

126

skirmish 1551 others 1325 nurse 1646 on her 1959

turf 1367 american 1411 working 1893 a bowl 1376

word 1018 excavation 1443 first 2216 herself 1750

first 1433 enɡland 1506 work 1980 woman 1243

o´clock 1354 thirty 2037 letter 1696

permission 1340 surprising 1477

disappeared 1480

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

sixteen 1849 sixteen 1789 street 2535 been 1801

weeks 1520 exams 1538 fleece 2023 territory 1995

medieval 2134 expression 1170 disease 2746 territory 2011

greenhouses 1695 isn´t it 1728 see 2158 very 1978

knees 2109 didn´t 1689 treatment 2291 happy 1319

these 1930 in England 1873 immediately 2690 picked 1976

civil 1614 story 1923

permission 1741 headed 1404

houses 1704

lived 1781

in 2112

aristocracy 1481

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

all 900 what 1014 story 1104 job 1127

pouring 768 off 1086 north 1010 on 1216

morning 837 on 979 morning 907 put on 1235

called 976 was 1421 form 957 got 1138

hall 765 long 1029 normally 986 office 1126

before 863 wanted 896 before 1292 sorry 1108

gaunt 951 force 875 from 1130

thought 1019

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

school 948 stood 1370 who 1316 could 939

do 1488 into 1520 lunatic 1856 woman 952

two 1225 to have 1574 goose´s 1876 foot 874

June 1543 waterproof 1326 huge 2422 would 1324

shooting 1787 ɡood 968 goose 1896 lunatic 1835

looked 1353 futile 2125 to 1834

liverpudlians 1180

F2 max RP: F2 max SCOUSE:

carrier æ carrier æ

exams 1590 happy 1533

that´s 1387 animal 1640

ancestry 1217 began 1827

back 1490 Harrison 1607

Lamport 1354 trap 960

127

have 1451 back 1622

hat 1654 managed 1556

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

american 1572 air 1585 well 1348 square 2051

sent 1625 there 1687 territory 1962 there 2004

extend 1700 there 2 1513 dress 830 rare 1954

trench 1950 wearinɡ 1618 headed 1941 millionaire 1966

twelve 1459 letter1 1616 fair 2101

dedicated 1990 letter2 1848

said 1771 vet 1801

tend 1828

F2 max SCOTTISH

F2 max ESTUARY:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

started 1319 hurry 1209 started 1293 hurry 1341

palm 1180 picked up 1144 palm 1102 picked up 1320

bath 1209 suffering 1377 bath 1159 suffering 1492

can´t 1619 strut 1089 can´t 1323 strut 1299

Glasgow 1374 much 1232 but 1489

but 1363 much 1275

come 1253

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

nurse 1167 nearer 1502 nurse 1443 nearer 1411

working 1037 her 1160 working 1365 owner 1373

deserted 1772 her 1063 deserted 1589 a bowl 1711

her 1158 herself 1382 superb 1428 herself 1482

work 912 mirror 1285 her 1458 mirror 1372

bird 1041 woman 1320 first 1429 woman 1402

letter 1415 letter 1532

surprising 1425 surprising 1543

remember 1558

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

street 2158 territory 1721 street 2432 veterinary 1917

fleece 2382 territory 1930 fleece 1674 working 1545

disease 2211 working 1845 disease 2077 daily 2135

see 2174 deserted 1784 see 2250 district 1580

feel 1467 district 1667 feel 1365 happy 1712

even 2049 happy 2283 even 2317 mirror 1686

mirror 1293 kit 2175

sorry 1600 district 1892

story 1619 deserted 1816

liking 1739

near 2226

128

F2 max SCOTTISH

F2 max ESTUARY:

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

story 1088 job 1018 story 1367 job 1191

north 1019 on 1080 north 1181 on 1396

more 955 washed 907 more 1032 porridge 1258

form 927 got 1111 form 1007 got 1295

normally 1068 washed 1248 normally 937 office 1116

lawyer 963 sorry 1011 before 1097 dog 965

thought 1039 for 930 thought 1007 for 1033

was 1101 force 842

morning 1148

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

you 1929 put 1661 you 2080 put 1267

huge 1863 woman 1395 who 1888 woman 1247

duke 1795 foot 1610 zoo 2357 foot 1527

new 1946 would 1645 new 2505 would 1658

goose 1651 lunatic 1472 goose 2183 to 1790

soon 1714 to 1783 lunatic 1806 to 1144

huge 2358 who 1067

could 1604

carrier æ carrier æ

happy 1225 happy 1483

animal 1719 animal 1421

began 1594 began 1582

Harrison 1451 Harrison 1334

trap 1182 trap 1351

back 1332 back 1495

managed 1241 managed 1504

that 1537

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

well 1481 square 1722 well 1469 square 1474

territory 1789 there 1616 territory 1492 there 1 1332

felt 1318 rare 1733 felt 1511 there 2 1664

stressed 1720 millionaire 2018 stressed 1478 rare 1660

checked 1912 fair 1779 checked 1681 millionaire 1634

letter 1734 letter 1579 fair 1611

vet 1813 vet 1621

herself 1013 herself 1551

129

F3mid RP: F3mid SCOUSE:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

archeological 2482 bunch 2418 started 2747 unsanitary 3586

last 2370 others 2270 palm 3016 picked up 2478

started 2296 us 2489 bath 2746 suffering 2649

garden 2410 Monday 2013 last 3026 strut 2875

past 2324 mud 2588 but 2333

none 2599

up 2405

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

skirmish 2448 others 2505 nurse 2082 on her 2857

130

turf 2341 american 2147 working 2419 a bowl 2101

word 2464 excavation 2366 first 2845 herself 2803

first 2338 enɡland 2440 work 2898 woman 2613

o´clock 2522 thirty 2950 letter 3541

permission 2112 surprising 3048

disappeared 2631

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

sixteen 2554 sixteen 2367 street 3199 been 2682

weeks 2267 exams 2134 fleece 2597 territory 2714

medieval 2526 expression 2508 disease 3216 territory 2784

greenhouses 2310 isn´t it 2696 see 3494 very 2644

knees 2657 didn´t 2420 treatment 2647 happy 2614

these 2675 in England 2398 immediately 3420 picked 2214

civil 2445 story 2834

permission 2584 headed 3203

houses 2658

lived 2487

in 2596

aristocracy 2379

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

all 2180 what 2153 story 2504 job 3403

pouring 2190 off 2389 north 2887 on 2559

morning 2303 on 2031 morning 3329 put on 1889

called 2200 was 2406 form 3075 got 2929

hall 2278 long 1826 normally 3264 office 2688

before 2101 wanted 1791 before 1888 sorry 2273

gaunt 2067 force 2958 from 2574

thought 2775

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

school 2186 stood 2528 new 2453 could 2833

do 2205 into 2451 who 2469 woman 2955

two 2111 to have 2260 lunatic 2521 foot 2993

June 2210 waterproof 2172 goose´s 2075 would 2713

shooting 2192 ɡood 2168 goose 2669 lunatic 2539

looked 2271 huge 2650 to 2898

futile 2322 liverpudlians 3178

carrier æ carrier æ

exams 2411 happy 2629

that´s 2470 animal 2755

ancestry 2690 began 2816

back 2349 Harrison 2583

Lamport 2470 trap 2776

131

have 2389 back 2682

hat 2538 managed 2413

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

american 2530 air 2490 well 3122 square 3142

sent 2517 there 2325 territory 3298 there 2712

extend 2469 there 2 2318 dress 1954 rare 2964

trench 2351 wearinɡ 2244 headed 2809 millionaire 2513

twelve 2320 letter1 3100 fair 2217

dedicated 2561 letter2 3070

said 2336 vet 2727

tend 2213

F3 mid SCOTTISH F3 mid ESTUARY:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

started 2577 hurry 2460 started 2473 hurry 2373

palm 2216 picked up 2323 palm 2591 picked up 2300

bath 2252 suffering 2458 bath 2604 suffering 2676

can´t 2596 strut 2218 can´t 2460 strut 2496

Glasgow 2766 much 2410 but 2282

but 2627 much 2666

come 2113

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

nurse 2386 nearer 2323 nurse 2631 nearer 2281

working 2387 her 2374 working 2460 owner 2441

deserted 2880 her 2388 deserted 2710 a bowl 2717

her 2379 herself 2555 superb 2301 herself 2201

work 2451 mirror 2343 her 2209 mirror 2559

bird 2473 woman 2377 woman 2567

letter 2518 letter 2480

surprising 2490 surprising 2604

remember 2718

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

street 2586 territory 2632 street 2526 veterinary 2395

fleece 2477 territory 2470 fleece 2558 working 2463

disease 2520 working 2479 disease 2552 daily 2513

see 2695 deserted 2804 see 2518 district 2080

feel 2346 district 2717 feel 2610 happy 2471

even 2410 happy 2339 even 2710 mirror 2358

mirror 2489 kit 2808

sorry 2456 district 2323

story 2460 deserted 2106

liking 2426

near 2611

132

F3 mid SCOTTISH F3 mid ESTUARY:

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

story 2465 job 2463 story 2547 job 2429

north 2404 on 2395 north 2053 on 2841

more 2360 washed 2441 more 2151 porridge 2217

form 2267 got 2597 form 2659 got 2525

normally 2316 washed 2442 normally 2259 office 2583

lawyer 2505 sorry 2311 before 2813 dog 2580

thought 2420 for 2368 thought 2671 for 2580

was 2346 force 2827

morning 2423

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

you 2416 put 2505 you 2436 put 2646

huge 2352 woman 2340 who 2301 woman 2668

duke 2370 foot 2282 zoo 2461 foot 2688

new 2440 would 2422 new 2886 would 2574

goose 2307 lunatic 2536 goose 2361 to 2702

soon 2550 to 2470 lunatic 2682 to 2821

huge 2680 who 2385

could 2603

carrier æ carrier æ

happy 2512 happy 2264

animal 2335 animal 2512

began 2248 began 2323

Harrison 2784 Harrison 2003

trap 2366 trap 2294

back 2336 back 2451

managed 2214 managed 2383

that 2542

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

well 2543 square 2555 well 2589 square 2431

territory 2481 there 2619 territory 2298 there 1 2467

felt 2389 rare 2553 felt 2521 there 2 2206

stressed 2469 millionaire 2720 stressed 2255 rare 2491

checked 2561 fair 2617 checked 2486 millionaire 2515

letter 2635 letter 2425 fair 2531

vet 2584 vet 2425

herself 2366 herself 2662

133

F3 max RP: F3 max SCOUSE:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

archeological 2570 bunch 2277 started 2561 unsanitary 3586

last 2484 others 2270 palm 3026 picked up 2283

started 2439 us 2463 bath 2713 suffering 2901

garden 2308 Monday 2269 last 3026 strut 2875

past 2103 mud 2271 but 2333

none 2583

up 2406

134

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

skirmish 2435 others 2474 nurse 2072 on her 2667

turf 2373 american 2355 working 2209 a bowl 2102

word 2292 excavation 2835 first 2902 herself 2918

first 2356 enɡland 2411 work 2959 woman 3412

o´clock 2533 thirty 2936 letter 3541

permission 2112 surprising 2761

disappeared 2352

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

sixteen 2477 sixteen 2404 street 2748 been 2685

weeks 2115 exams 2426 fleece 2622 territory 3359

medieval 2675 expression 2544 disease 3050 territory 2782

greenhouses 2251 isn´t it 2681 see 2741 very 2664

knees 2727 didn´t 2433 treatment 2637 happy 2565

these 2481 in England 2447 immediately 3609 picked 2214

civil 2445 story 3203

permission 2584 headed 2128

houses 2658

lived 2387

in 2596

aristocracy 1872

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

all 2212 what 2208 story 2376 job 3235

pouring 2324 off 2457 north 3138 on 2559

morning 2168 on 2143 morning 3329 put on 1660

called 2205 was 2333 form 3075 got 2900

hall 2245 long 2642 normally 3344 office 2688

before 2089 wanted 1779 before 2004 sorry 2250

gaunt 1975 force 2964 from 2461

thought 2981

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

school 2239 stood 2452 who 2582 could 2833

do 2151 into 2495 lunatic 2635 woman 2968

two 2202 to have 2260 goose´s 3497 foot 2953

June 2232 waterproof 2064 huge 2547 would 2923

shooting 2350 ɡood 2189 goose 2649 lunatic 2581

looked 2304 futile 2322 to 3060

liverpudlians 3178

F3 max RP:

F3 max SCOUSE:

carrier æ carrier æ

exams 2362 happy 2563

135

that´s 2481 animal 2737

ancestry 1564 began 2661

back 2328 Harrison 2584

Lamport 2594 trap 1715

have 2312 back 2686

hat 2538 managed 2216

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

american 2211 air 2327 well 3026 air 2845

sent 2553 there 2488 territory 3337 there 2992

extend 2472 there 2 2351 dress 1900 there 2 2831

trench 2394 wearinɡ 2313 headed 2424 wearinɡ 2773

twelve 2275 letter1 3111 said 2305

dedicated 2581 letter2 2228

said 2417 vet 2552

tend 3195

F3 max SCOTTISH

F3 max ESTUARY:

carrier a: carrier ʌ carrier a: carrier ʌ

started 2587 hurry 2460 started 2569 hurry 2468

palm 2328 picked up 2323 palm 2826 picked up 2418

bath 2301 suffering 2496 bath 2604 suffering 2745

can´t 2571 strut 2345 can´t 2514 strut 2550

Glasgow 2766 much 2258 but 2282

but 2627 much 2364

come 2056

carrier ɜː carrier ə carrier ɜː carrier ə

nurse 2406 nearer 2635 nurse 2491 nearer 2303

working 2352 her 2455 working 2482 owner 2438

deserted 2905 her 2407 deserted 2319 a bowl 2542

her 2444 herself 2555 superb 2672 herself 2201

work 2242 mirror 2424 her 2209 mirror 2574

bird 2391 woman 2361 first 2664 woman 2380

letter 2459 letter 2480

surprising 2490 surprising 2604

remember 2685

carrier i: carrier ɪ carrier i: carrier ɪ

street 2586 territory 2632 street 2661 veterinary 2348

fleece 2453 territory 2470 fleece 2564 working 2499

disease 2564 working 2479 disease 2556 daily 2722

see 2711 deserted 2804 see 2667 district 2113

feel 2393 district 2697 feel 2645 happy 2471

even 2408 happy 3038 even 2723 mirror 2445

mirror 2441 kit 2724

sorry 2461 district 2369

136

story 2452 deserted 2106

liking 2605

near 2350

F3 max SCOTTISH

F3 max ESTUARY:

carrier ɔː carrier ɒ carrier ɔː carrier ɒ

story 2411 job 2406 story 2566 job 2458

north 2465 on 2399 north 2125 on 2513

more 2438 washed 2442 more 2142 porridge 2207

form 2322 got 2572 form 2625 got 2406

normally 2282 washed 2442 normally 2092 office 2566

lawyer 2505 sorry 2399 before 2808 dog 2544

thought 2404 for 2410 thought 2596 for 2572

was 2322 force 2817

morning 2150

carrier uː carrier ʊ carrier uː carrier ʊ

you 2395 put 2505 you 2447 put 2651

huge 2385 woman 2340 who 2274 woman 2680

duke 2356 foot 2265 zoo 2418 foot 2688

new 2440 would 2422 new 2869 would 2575

goose 2292 lunatic 2536 goose 2455 to 2623

soon 2568 to 2470 lunatic 2445 to 2849

huge 2761 who 2400

could 2603

carrier æ carrier æ

happy 2512 happy 2546

animal 2464 animal 2512

began 2248 began 2325

Harrison 2920 Harrison 1989

trap 2411 trap 2361

back 2323 back 2555

managed 2223 managed 2617

that 2594

carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə carrier ɛ carrier ɛːə

well 2292 square 2536 well 2766 square 2453

territory 2481 there 2521 territory 2267 there 1 2485

felt 2438 rare 2123 felt 2530 there 2 2069

stressed 2551 millionaire 2753 stressed 2212 rare 2378

checked 2561 fair 2616 checked 2371 millionaire 2515

letter 2642 letter 2806 fair 2551

vet 2643 vet 2739

herself 2478 herself 2626

137

Statistical Analysis for RP:

Parameter: t-test original data Mann-Whitney test Mann-Whitney doubled

138

Statistical Analysis for SCOUSE:

data

LENGTH: df t-

value

p-

value

df:

(n1+n2)

U-

value

p-

value

df:

(n1+n2)

U-

value

p-

value

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 10 4.2 0.002 5+7 0 0.005 10+14 0 0.0001

/ɜː/- /ə/ 9 3.7 0.005 4+7 0 0.01 8+14 0 0.0001

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 11 12.7 .6x10-7

6+12 0 0.0008 12+24 0 0.0001

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 11 0.005 0.99 7+6 15.5 0.47 14+12 62 0.26

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 5 1.82 0.12 5+6 3.5 0.04 10+12 14 0.002

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 9 1.28 0.23 7+4 11.5 0.7 14+8 46 0.51

F1:

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 10 0.77 0.45 5+7 13 0.53 10+14 52 0.3

/ɜː/- /ə/ 9 3.27 0.01 4+7 2 0.02 8+14 8 0.001

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 16 3.62 0.002 6+12 6 0.006 12+24 24 0.0001

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 11 4.72 0.0006 7+6 1.5 0.007 14+12 6 0.0001

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 9 0.44 0.67 6+5 12 0.66 12+10 48 0.45

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 9 0.09 0.93 7+4 12 0.79 14+8 48 0.61

F2:

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 9 1.87 0.09 5+7 7 0.1 10+14 28 0.01

/ɜː/- /ə/ 9 0.46 0.65 4+7 11 0.65 8+14 44 0.43

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 6 2.01 0.09 6+12 12 0.02 10+24 36 0.002

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 11 1.61 0.14 7+6 14 0.36 14+12 56 0.16

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 9 1.58 0.15 5+6 6 0.13 10+12 24 0.02

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 9 .099 0.35 7+4 8 0.31 14+8 32 0.11

Parameter:

t-test original data Mann-Whitney test Mann-Whitney doubled

data

139

Statistical Analysis for Scottish English:

LENGTH: df t-value p-

value

df:

(n1+n2)

U-

value

p-

value

df:

(n1+n2)

U-

value

p-

value

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 3 2.13 0.122 4+5 0 0.02 8+10 0 0.0003

/ɜː/- /ə/ 9 4.72 0.001 5+6 0 0.007 10+12 0 0.0001

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 5 3.33 0.02 6+8 3 0.007 12+16 12 0.0001

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 7 1.74 0.12 8+7 0 0.001 16+14 0 0.0001

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 12 4.19 0.001 7+7 3 0.007 14+14 12 0.0001

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 7 5.66 0.001 8+5 0 0.004 16+10 0 0.0001

F1:

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 4 4.5 4+5 0 0.02 8+10 0 0.0004

/ɜː/- /ə/ 9 2.72 4+7 2 0.02 10+12 8 0.0007

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 12 3.15 6+12 6 0.006 12+16 24 0.0009

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 13 6.67 7+6 1.5 0.007 16+14 0 0.0001

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 9 0.46 6+5 12 0.66 14+14 64 0.12

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 11 5.66 8+5 0 0.0004 16+10 0 0.0001

F2:

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 6 3.01 4+5 2 0.06 8+10 8 0.005

/ɜː/- /ə/ 8 3.06 5+6 2 0.01 10+12 8 0.0007

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 11 3.9 6+8 3 0.005 12+16 12 0.0001

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 13 4.22 8+7 3 0.002 16+14 12 0.0001

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 12 2.79 7+7 4 0.007 14+14 16 0.0002

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 9 4.32 8+5 0 0.002 16+10 0 0.0001

Parameter: t-test original data Mann-Whitney test Mann-Whitney doubled

140

Statistical Analysis for ESTUARY:

data

LENGTH: df t-value p-value df:

(n1+n2)

U-

value

p-

value

df:

(n1+n2)

U-

value

p-

value

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 5 3.43 0.02 5+6 0 0.007 10+12 0 0.0001

/ɜː/- /ə/ 12 2.69 0.02 6+8 6.5 0.02 12+16 26 0.001

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 11 5.63 0.0001 6+11 1 0.001 12+22 4 0.0001

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 13 0.45 0.66 7+8 11.5 0.06 14+16 46 0.005

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 10 3.27 0.008 6+6 2 0.012 12+12 8 0.0002

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 7 0.89 0.4 8+5 15.5 0.55 16+10 62 0.35

F1:

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 9 3.55 0.006 5+6 2 0.02 10+12 8 0.0007

/ɜː/- /ə/ 9 1.05 0.32 6+8 16 0.35 12+16 64 0.14

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 15 3.96 0.001 6+11 0 0.001 12+22 0 0.0001

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 13 1.07 0.3 7+8 16.5 0.2 14+16 66 0.058

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 8 0.28 0.78 6+6 17 0.94 12+12 68 0.84

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 6 2.1 0.08 8+5 6 0.04 16+10 24 0.003

F2:

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 9 1.86 0.09 5+6 6 0.12 10+12 24 0.02

/ɜː/- /ə/ 11 5.1 0.0003 6+8 0 0.0007 12+16 0 0.0001

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 15 3.59 0.002 6+11 6 0.005 12+22 24 0.0001

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 13 2.02 0.06 7+8 12.5 0.08 14+16 50 0.01

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 9 3.04 0.01 6+6 3 0.02 12+12 12 0.0006

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 12 0.03 0.98 8+15 19 0.94 16+10 76 0.85

Parameter:

t-test original data Mann-Whitney test Mann-Whitney doubled

data

141

Critical values of Student's t-distribution (2-tailed).

LENGTH: df t-

value

p-value df:

(n1+n2)

U-

value

p-

value

df:

(n1+n2)

U-

value

p-

value

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 9 3.18 0.01 4+7 2.5 0.03 8+14 10 0.002

/ɜː/- /ə/ 12 2.83 0.01 5+9 7 0.04 10+18 28 0.003

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 13 2.22 0.04 6+9 11 0.06 12+18 44 0.007

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 14 2.97 0.01 9+7 10.5 0.03 18+14 42 0.001

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 7 3.26 0.01 7+7 1.5 0.004 14+14 6 0.0001

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 8 1.88 0.09 8+6 11.5 0.12 16+12 46 0.02

F1:

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 8 0.19 0.85 4+7 14 0.99 8+14 56 0.97

/ɜː/- /ə/ 12 2.83 0.01 5+9 8 0.06 10+18 32 0.006

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 13 2.49 0.02 6+9 6 0.01 12+18 24 0.0004

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 14 0.75 0.47 9+7 25 0.53 18+14 100 0.33

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 11 1.44 0.17 7+8 16 0.19 14+16 64 0.04

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 11 2.39 0.03 8+6 8 0.04 16+12 32 0.003

F2:

/aː/ - /ʌ/ 8 2.91 0.02 4+7 2 0.02 8+14 8 0.001

/ɜː/- /ə/ 11 0.54 0.6 5+9 21 0.89 10+18 84 0.79

/iː/ - /ɪ/ 13 3.06 0.01 6+9 8 0.03 12+18 32 0.001

/ɔː/ - /ɒ/ 14 1.55 0.14 9+7 20 0.25 18+14 80 0.08

/uː/ - /ʊ/ 13 6.52 1.9x10-5

7+8 0 0.0003 14+16 0 0.0001

/ɛ/ - /ɛː/, /ɛːə/ 9 0.02 0.98 8+6 23 0.95 16+12 92 0.87

142

Degrees

of

Freedom

P=0.05 Degrees

of

Freedom

P=0.05

1 12.706 11 2.201

2 4.303 12 2.179

3 3.182 13 2.160

4 2.776 14 2.145

5 2.571 15 2.131

6 2.447 16 2.120

7 2.365 17 2.110

8 2.306 18 2.101

9 2.262 19 2.093

10 2.228 20 2.086

Critical values of U for the Mann-Whitney U test (P = 0.05).

n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2 - - - - - - - 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2

3 - - - - 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8

4 - - - - - - 3 4 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 11 12 13 13

5 - 0 1 2 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 14 15 17 18 19 20

6 - - - - - 5 6 8 10 11 13 14 16 17 19 21 22 24 25 27

7 - - - - - - 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34

8 - - - - - - - 13 15 17 19 22 24 26 29 31 34 36 38 41

9 - - - - - - - - 17 20 23 26 28 31 34 37 39 42 45 48

10 - - - - - - - - - 23 26 29 33 36 39 42 45 48 52 55

11 - - - - - - - - - - 30 33 37 40 44 47 51 55 58 62

12 - - - - - - - - - - - 37 41 45 49 53 57 61 65 69

13 - - - - - - - - - - - - 45 50 54 59 63 67 72 76

14 - - - - - - - - - - - - - 55 59 64 67 74 78 83

15 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 64 70 75 80 85 90

16 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 75 81 86 92 98

17 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 87 93 99 105

18 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 99 106 112

19 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 113 119

COMMA GETS A CURE

143

Well, here's a story for you: Sarah Perry was a veterinary nurse who had been working

daily at an old zoo in a deserted district of the territory, so she was very happy to start a

new job at a superb private practice in north square near the Duke Street Tower. That

area was much nearer for her and more to her liking. Even so, on her first morning, she

felt stressed. She ate a bowl of porridge, checked herself in the mirror and washed her

face in a hurry. Then she put on a plain yellow dress and a fleece jacket, picked up her kit

and headed for work.

When she got there, there was a woman with a goose waiting for her. The woman gave

Sarah an official letter from the vet. The letter implied that the animal could be suffering

from a rare form of foot and mouth disease, which was surprising, because normally you

would only expect to see it in a dog or a goat. Sarah was sentimental, so this made her

feel sorry for the beautiful bird.

Before long, that itchy goose began to strut around the office like a lunatic, which made

an unsanitary mess. The goose's owner, Mary Harrison, kept calling, "Comma, Comma,"

which Sarah thought was an odd choice for a name. Comma was strong and huge, so it

would take some force to trap her, but Sarah had a different idea. First she tried gently

stroking the goose's lower back with her palm, then singing a tune to her. Finally, she

administered ether. Her efforts were not futile. In no time, the goose began to tire, so

Sarah was able to hold onto Comma and give her a relaxing bath.

Once Sarah had managed to bathe the goose, she wiped her off with a cloth and laid her

on her right side. Then Sarah confirmed the vet‟s diagnosis. Almost immediately, she

remembered an effective treatment that required her to measure out a lot of medicine.

Sarah warned that this course of treatment might be expensive - either five or six times

the cost of penicillin. I can‟t imagine paying so much, but Mrs. Harrison - a millionaire

lawyer - thought it was a fair price for a cure.

Comma Gets a Cure and derivative works may be used freely for any purpose without

special permission, provided the present sentence and the following copyright

notification accompany the passage in print, if reproduced in print, and in audio format in

the case of a sound recording: Copyright 2000 Douglas N. Honorof, Jill McCullough &

Barbara Somerville. All rights reserved.

144

The Rainbow Passage

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow.

The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape

of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the

horizon. There is , according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but

no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say

he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Throughout the centuries

people have explained the rainbow in various ways. Some have accepted it as a miracle

without physical explanation. To the Hebrews it was a token that there would be no more

universal floods. The Greeks used to imagine that it was a sign from the gods to foretell

war or heavy rain. The Norsemen considered the rainbow as a bridge over which the gods

passed from earth to their home in the sky. Others have tried to explain the phenomenon

physically. Aristotle thought that the rainbow was caused by reflection of the sun's rays

by the rain. Since then physicists have found that it is not reflection, but refraction by the

raindrops which causes the rainbows. Many complicated ideas about the rainbow have

been formed. The difference in the rainbow depends considerably upon the size of the

drops, and the width of the colored band increases as the size of the drops increases. The

actual primary rainbow observed is said to be the effect of super-imposition of a number

of bows. If the red of the second bow falls upon the green of the first, the result is to give

a bow with an abnormally wide yellow band, since red and green light when mixed form

yellow. This is a very common type of bow, one showing mainly red and yellow, with

little or no green or blue.

From Fairbanks, G. (1960). Voice and articulation drillbook, 2nd

edn. New York: Harper

& Row. pp124-139.

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