Vowel Natural Classes - notes from professor to show how the tongue works in pronouncing certain sounds PDF

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notes from professor to show how the tongue works in pronouncing certain sounds ...

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English has an unusually complicated vowel system, like most other languages of northwestern Europe (French, Danish, Norwegian, and Scots-Gaelic are even more complicated than English!). Luckily, vowel phonetics is simpler overall than consonant phonetics, so there is still not that much to learn. Vowel phonetics involves only the following main contrasts: Tongue height (how high the tongue rises up): high (= close) or low (= open)? (Mid vowels are actually neither high nor low. Although linguists counter-intuitively call the two types of mid vowels ‘high-mid’ and ‘low-mid’, both these types are still [- high] and [- low]) What part of the tongue rises up? Front or back? (central vowels are neither) Tense (somehow more effort in pronouncing) or Lax (less effort in pronouncing) (By the way, ‘high-mid vowels’ like [e] and [o] should really be called ‘mid tense vowels’ and ‘low-mid vowels’ like [ ɛ], [ ɔ], [ ʌ] should be called ‘mid lax vowels’). Are the lips rounded (= rounded vowel) or not (= unrounded vowel) In some languages, like French, there is an additional contrast: nasal (= nasalized) or plain (non-nasalized). All English vowels are non-nasalized except before a nasal consonant, where they are predictably a little nasalized so we can ignore it (or add a tilde [ 5 ] superscript over the vowel symbol to transcribe it in very narrow transcription. Let’s start with naming each vowel sound used in NAE (Standard North American English that most people in the Western US speak), and after you get familiar with the symbols, we can put them into natural classes. Start by recognizing each distinctive vowel sound using basic English words, then make flash cards to learn its correct natural class description and IPA symbol. Listen to the vowel in: beat, beet, heat, see, bee, be Basically, this is a high front unrounded tense vowel, transcribed as [i]. However, in English, unlike Spanish and most other languages, this and three other tense, non-low vowels are ‘diphthongoid’ with a unique off glide. So the fully accurate narrow transcription would be [iɪ] or, less commonly [ij]. A lot of linguists leave off the second element when transcribing English diphthongoid vowels because it is fussy and predictable anyway. But you still need to be aware of it if you want to understand why the Spanish word for yes “si” sounds different than English “see”. bit, sip, it, mid This is a high (= close) front unrounded lax vowel, transcribed as [ɪ]. gate, late, ate, aid This is a high-mid (= close-mid) front unrounded tense vowel, transcribed as [e] but in English it is diphthongoid and not pure, so it is transcribed as [eɪ] or, less commonly [ej]. Compare English ‘no say’ to Spanish “No se”.

bed, bet, men, tell This is a low-mid (= open-mid) front unrounded lax vowel, transcribed as [ɛ] bad, and, hat, at, sad This is a low front unrounded lax vowel, transcribed as [æ]. father, car, sob, off This is a low back unrounded vowel, transcribed as [ɑ] in the pronunciation of most people in the Western US. But in Boston and New York it is usually pronounced as the low front vowel [a]. (Have you heard the Boston pronunciation of ‘Park the car in Harvard Yard”?) what, of, but, butt, putt This is a low-mid (= open-mid) back unrounded lax vowel, properly transcribed by the symbol known as a ‘carrot’: [ʌ] sofa, Anna In an unstressed syllable, a very similar sounding vowel is transcribed using the symbol ‘schwa’: [ǝ]. This is a mid central lax vowel. If you can’t hear the difference between carrot and schwa, just transcribed the stressed sound in ‘what’ with the carrot [ ʌ] and the unstressed sound in sofa or about as schwa [ǝ]. bird, word, nerd The syllable nucleus in such words is actually a syllabic R-sound. It can be transcribed as either: 1) ‘schwar’ [ɚ] or 2) [ɹ] with the subscript dot indicating syllabicity of a consonant. This is really not a vowel at all but a syllabic sonorant! This sound is rare and American English is in the 2% of world languages that use it. know, no, so, low This is a high-mid (= close-mid) back rounded tense vowel, transcribed as [o] but in English it is diphthongoid and not pure, so it is transcribed as [oʊ] or, less commonly [ow]. You need to be aware of it if you want to understand why Spanish “no” sounds different than English “no”. too, do, food, rude, fool This is a high (= close) back rounded tense vowel, transcribed as [u] but in English it is diphthongoid and not pure, so it is transcribed as [uʊ] or, less commonly [uw]. Compare English ‘too’ with pure Spanish ‘tu’. foot, full, put, should, would This is a high (= close) back rounded lax vowel, transcribed as [ʊ]. This vowel is being replaced by [ʌ] is some US English dialects. If you pronounce “put” and “putt” the same way, then you probably have lost [ ʊ] and instead pronounce [ ʌ] in all these words. Review of diphthongoid vowels. Four English tense vowels are pronounced with a second phase that sounds like the glide or lax vowel nearest in pronunciation. These sound combinatinos are uncommon across the world’s languages and they make English distinctive (and difficult to pronounce as a second language!): See, bee, seat [iɪ] or, less commonly [ij]. The core vowel [i] is high (= close) tense unrounded. Say, bay, gate [eɪ] or, less commonly [ej]. The core vowel [e] is high-mid (= close-mid) tense unrounded.

So, know, no [oʊ] or, less commonly [ow]. The core vowel [o] is high-mid (= close-mid) tense rounded. Sue, too, do [uʊ] or, less commonly [uw]. The core vowel [u] is high (= close) tense rounded. Remember that the second sub-segment of the four English diphthongoid vowels is often omitted in transcription because it is predictably present (but you won’t have to decide what to do on a test because my tests are multiple choice and you’ll be given the symbols already as choices – just know which four core vowels are pronounced diphthongoid in English). You should pay attention to the diphthongoid quality of these English vowels because it explains why you have an accent when you try to speak these vowels in other languages (and why Russian or Spanish or French speakers sound ‘foreign’ in English). NAE also has three true diphthongs (which differ from diphthongoid vowels in that the place and sometimes the manner of articulation of each sub-segment of a true diphthong is completely different. True diphthongs are hard to place onto a vowel chart because each sub-segment belongs in a different place! (but I did it anyway, ignoring the second sub-segment). high, night, ride [aɪ] combination of low front unrounded [a] with high front lax unrounded [ɪ] how, now, vow [aʊ] combination of low front unrounded [a] with high back lax rounded [ʊ] boy, soil, royal [ɔɪ] combination of low-mid (= close-mid) rounded [ɔ] with high front lax unrounded [ɪ] The pure low-mid (= close-mid) rounded [ ɔ] only occurs predictably before [ ɹ] in most Western US pronunciations: for, door (in contrast to Southern US English, which instead pronounces diphthongoid [o ʊ] before r in words like for and door which sound like fowr, dowr in that dialect). However, in New England the letter combinations /ough/ and /augh/ are pronounced this way too. Western US, by contrast pronounces ‘caught’ and ‘cot’ the same, both with [ ɑ]. Another dialectal difference is that some East Coast speakers round the vowel in father so it is rounded [ ɒ] instead of unrounded [ɑ]. English dialects tend to vary by vowel pronunciation, wheareas most consonants stay the same across dialects. In this intro class, I want to focus on the general Western US pronunciation, sometimes called “Standard North American English (or NAE). But when reading other books about English phonetics, pay attention to which dialect is being transcribed – sometimes the author doesn’t tell you!

Here are the English vowels arranged into natural classes (remember, we can’t put a true diphthong into a single natural class because each sub-segment belongs to different classes): [+ rounded] [u], [ʊ], [o], [ɔ], [ɒ], also diphthongoid [u ʊ], [o ʊ] [- rounded] [i], [ɪ], [e], [ɛ], [æ], [a], [ɑ], [ǝ], [ʌ], also diphthongoid [iɪ], [eɪ] [+ tense] - these are actually diphthongoid in English, a combination of a tense segment and a lax segment [+ high] [u], [ʊ], [i], [ɪ], also diphthongoid [u ʊ], [o ʊ], [i ɪ], [eɪ] [+ low] [æ], [a], [ ɑ], [ ɒ] - basically all the A-sounds are low, which is why dentists ask you to say them to look into your mouth. mid vowels are actually [- high] and [- low]: [e], [ɛ], [o], [ɔ], [ǝ], [ʌ] [+ front] [i], [ ɪ], [e], [ ɛ], [æ], [a] (sometimes [a] is called ‘central’) [+ back] [u], [ʊ], [o], [ ɔ], [ ɑ], [ ɒ], [ ʌ] central vowels are actually [- front] and [- back] - just schwa [ǝ], though sometimes [a] is called ‘central’ instead of [+ front] True diphthongs of NAE: [a ɪ] [a ʊ] [ ɔɪ] There are lots more diphthongs in other dialects of English, but that is not for our intro class. Rare diphthongoid tense vowels: [uʊ], [o ʊ], [i ɪ], [e ɪ] Syllabic R masquerading as a vowel: schwar [ ɚ ~ ɹ] English also has syllabic [ l], [ m], [ n] but only in unstressed syllables: button, rhythm, bottle so speakers hardly notice it (they think a schwa is pronounced before the consonant and in slow speech it sometimes is)...