The most basic syllable type crosslinguistically is
CV
Vowels usually form the _ of a syllable.
nucleus
There are _ primary cardinal vowels.
8
The crosslinguistically most common vowel system contains which vowels?
[i e a o u]
Which of the following is usually described as an ‘r-ful’ variety of English?
American English
Open articulations: active and passive articulators never contact
Points in a multi-d space (coords are articulatory or acoustic).
Background
The most basic syllable type is CV:
C: consonant (constriction)
V: vowel (release)
Syllable: a grouing of segments
Onset: preceding
Nucleus: the most open articulation
Sometimes a consonant is the loudest, then it is marked as a syllabic consonant with a vertical line underneath
Coda: succeeding
Syllables alternate between more and less prominent (stress). A varties of parameters can be used.
Pitch
Loudness
Length etc.
Vocal tract is asymmetrical. We aren’t very good at telling where the back of our tongues are.
“High” or “Back” refers to what a vowel sounds like.
Cardinal vowels
Jones 18 cardinal vowels with 8 primary cardinal vowels, 1, 5, 8 being the extreme positions:
Note: Cardinals 9 to 18 are just the rounded/unrounded counterparts.
They are not actual vowels of a particular language, but they are just reference points for orientation in the vowel space.
Cardinal vowels don’t appear in any language as it is super precise.
No two vowels have the same physical height.
Vowels are not exact, no contact btwn active and passive articulators
Other cardinal vowels are ‘auditorily equidistant’ between 3 extremes
See the “leaf shape”
Actual tongue position producing various cardinal vowels aren’t articulatorily equidistant
Dimensions
How to count how many degrees are required? Find the number of coinciding
Height/Backness
The [i e a o u] will probably not be the same as Jones’ cardinal vowels.
If the vowel system is small/basic, the “space” each vowel occupies before they become indistinguishable is large
Vowel height is the most important parameter in describing vowels
Vertical vowel systems typically only contrast 2 or 3 vowels
Height is the only parameter required to distinguish vowels in vowel system
In a typical 5 vowel system:
[a] is usually produced quite centrally, but we don’t need another position as usually no other vowel contrasts with it. (same height)
vowels are maximally distributed in the vowel space
Tense/Laxness
The definition tends to be fuzzy, so no one measure holds for all languages
Tense/lax in English
leave [liv] vs live [lɪv]
tense vowels are higher/longer than the lax in English
BUT not in Akan
tense and lax vowels are not contrasting in height
Instead, advanced/retracted tongue root
Forward –> tongue go up (which is why tense tends to be higher) and vice versa.
Typically foudn only in mid/high
Low vowels don’t really have
muscle tension raises the tongue body but body has to be lowered for low vowels.
Rounding
Rounding and backing both enlarge the front cavity
back rounded is unmarked
Front the tongue and spreading the lips shrink the front cavity
fron unrounded is unmarked
Low vowels are rarely rounded:
[ɒ] is marked instead of it’s unrounded counterpart. its only used in RP
‘r-ful’-ness
GA (General American) is r-ful: stressed vowel before the r
r-dropping
schwa [ə] vs wedge [ʌ]
schwa: unstressed neutral vowel
wedge: stressed non-front, non-round, mid vowel
In unstressed syllables with orthographic “r”, rhotic dialects have [schwa with a curl], non-rhotic
have [schwa].
You will never find a tap on a stressed syllable.
Conventions for central vowels:
with no orthographic r, stressed central vowel is transcribed with wedge.
Even though the pronunciation sounds more like a schwa
the unstressed vowel is using the schwa instead.
Orthographic r: Drop the r for non-rhotic accents.
Stressed: [ɜɹ]
unstressed: [əɹ]
Assimilation
Look at the neighbours, do they share common characteristics?
If they do, an unusual or marked segment may be the result of assimilation as opposed to being contrastive
Low vowel contrasts
Vowel nasality and voice quality
Nasality: tilde above
Voice quality:
devoiced: underdot
unstressed vowels after aspirated stops can be voiceless! (e.g. potato in GA, narrow transcription)
creaky: tilde below
breathy: umlaut below
Coarticulation: overlap in the articulatory gestures
anticipatory coarticulation
if a nasal consonant is anticipated, you have to open the velar port and nasalize the vowel! e.g. [pæn]
For every nasal vowel, there is a non-nasal vowel: nasal vowels are marked.
nasal tracts dampens acoustic cues differentiating the vowels
Extra resonance of the nasal cavity interferes with the acoustics of tongue/lip
so nasal vowels are harder to distinguish
Length and diphthongs
Diphthongs
Require a change in tongue and lip position throughout it’s duration.
Dipthongs are longer than dipthongized vowels generally, but
crucially must change tongue position in constrast with diphthongized vowels.
The difference between diphthongs and diphthongized vowels is that
in a true diphthong, deleting the offglide (second part) changes the meaning of the word.
e.g. [kait] vs [kat] and [waʊnd] vs [wand]
Voice quality contrasts tend to be more marked on vowels because vowels are necessarily voiced.
Different tension in the vocal folds WILL be observable.
Tone
Voice quality contrasts tend to be more marked on vowels because vowels are necessarily voiced.
Different frequency in the vocal folds WILL be observable.
tone is a property of the unity larger than a segment, usually syllable/word.
BUT the diff in pitch is the clearest at the vowel.
stressed vowels tend to have higher pitch
questions have rising pitch, statements have falling pitch
Tonal language:
Level tones: flat levels [Register tone languages only have levels]
Contour tones: Crucial pitch rising/falling
[are marked! you expect languages with contour tones to have level tones too]
