PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY VOWEL SYSTEMS: SOLUTION ...

PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
VOWEL SYSTEMS: SOLUTION
Revise the lecture materials on the nature of vowel systems including the
concept of symmetry and the dynamic processes of change.
Vowel systems in language are usually symmetrical. Revise maximal
contrast/dispersion as a perceptual requirement. Go over the idea of a single feature
often used as contrast e.g. nasality, rounding, length.
Activities
1. Examine the Portuguese vowel space below and discuss the important
characteristics that would be used to describe this vowel system.
This system has four levels of height and three of backness. There is also the oral nasal
distinction for 5 positions. Incidentally Portuguese also has 14 diphthongs!
2. Examine the Hungarian vowel space below and discuss the important
characteristics that would be used to describe this vowel system.

Hungarian has seven basic vowel qualities occurring as long and short vowels at each
place. The short vowels are generally lower and less peripheral
3. A language with the vowel system illustrated below is in the process of
undergoing a change such that the low central vowel is moving towards the
back of the space. Discuss the potential implications of this shift. Assume that
there are no length distinctions.
If the low vowel moves back it will start to encroach upon the low back vowel which may
have to change in some way to prevent a merger. Think of different ways the system could
cope with this potential conflict. e.g. the back vowel could become rounded or more
probably it would start to rise. This might set up a chain of events that could affect the
entire back dimension with all vowels rising. But there would be a problem with /u/ unable
to go any higher. What might be the possible effects on /u/ e.g. fronting or diphthongisation.
4. A language has two diphthongs that rise from the low front and low back of the
space. These diphthongs are closely associated with the two low monophthongs.
Discuss the possible effect of monophthong raising on these two diphthongs. What
impact might this have on the third diphthong in the language?
Raising the two low monophthongs could cause a concomitant shift in the first target of the
two associated diphthongs through the process of monophthong / diphthong
interdependence. This would impact on the third diphthong because there would be two
diphthongs in the system with the same trajectory pattern. This third diphthong would
presumably also have to change to prevent merger.

5. The following is a corpus of words from French
̃
[si] “si” ‘if’ [se] “ses” ‘his,hers (p)’
[s] “sait” ‘knows’ [sy] “su” ‘known’
[sø] “ceux” ‘these’ [sœʁ] “soeur” ‘sister’
[sə] “ce” ‘this’ [sa] “sa” ‘his, hers (f)’
[su] “sous” ‘under’ [so] “sot” ‘silly’
[sɔʁ] “sort” ‘fate’ [sɑ̃̃]
“sans” ‘without’
[sɔ̃] “son” ‘his,hers (m sg)’ [sɛ̃̃]
“saint” ‘saint’
Plot the approximate position of the vowels on the chart below and comment
on the system of vowels used in this language. /a/ is low central

French vowel system has four degrees of height and three degrees of backness. All back
vowels (except low) are rounded. The front vowel set has both unrounded and rounded
elements at each place (except the low). There are no length contrasts for most speakers.
French has four nasalised vowels but here we have only represented three because many
speakers have merged the low and half low front nasalised vowels into the half low.
6. Discuss potential difficulties that Japanese speakers might have with the
differentiation and production of English vowels based on the following vowel space
from Japanese. Japanese has a length contrast at each of these vowel places.
There are potential problems with differentiating/producing the distinctions between the
HAT vowel and the HUT vowel, also COT/CAUGHT. There is no central vowel so the
HURT vowel could cause problems.