Vowels, chapter 9 - Department of Linguistics and English Language

Vowels, chapter 9
April 5, 2013

Quiz
1. Who is Daniel Jones?
2. What are cardinal vowels?
3. How do primary cardinal vowels
differ from secondary cardinal
vowel?
4. What is the principle of perceptual
separation?

. Principle of Balance
Definition: If a
language has one
sound in its
inventory, it will
usually have a
similar sound
across the vowel
chart
Example: Think of the languages you have
been examining in your investigations—if they
have an /i/ do they have an /u/? If they have an
/e/ do they have an /o/? Any exceptions?

6. Why are cardinal vowels
used?
To explain the exact pronunciation of a vowel
Example: French /y/, English /u/ and French
/u/
French /y/ and /u/ are very close to cardinal
vowels, English /u/ is more centralized,
closer in perception to Cardinal vowel /y/

Vowel Charts of
Languages and Dialects
Look over the charts of different
vowel systems.
1. Can you find the principle of
perceptual separation?
2. Can you find the principle of
balance?
3. Are there any exceptions?

How do we get 300
vowels?
• Vowels can be distinguished not only in terms of their
quality (the value of their formants), but also by
primary and secondary articulations and by the type
of phonation used for their production; e.g.
• Gujarati has breathy voiced vowels
• Mazatec has creaky-voiced vowels
• Mpi has tense-voice vowels
• When phonation types are combined with vowel
height, backness, rounding and nasalization the
number of possible vowels increases dramatically

Vowels and Primary and
Secondary Articulation
Primary Articuation:
• Rhoticized
• Nasalized
• ATR
• Semivowels
Secondary Articulation
• Palatalization
• Velarization
• Pharyngealization
• Labialization

1. What are Rhotic
Vowels?
What is the tongue shaped like in a
rhotic?
It’s either bunched in the center of
the mouth or the tip is retroflexed
back in post-alveolar
What do F2 and F3 look like in rhotic
vowels?
F3 (and sometimes F2) bend down.

Rhotic Vowels

Is there a difference
between /ar/ and /r/?
/ar/ has a part of a vowel that is nonrhotacized
(the first part). / r/ only
has a rhotacized vowel (notice where the
3 rd formant originates)
This is why r is sometimes transcribed
as // or //.

R-coloring in Am E
Merry, Mary, Marry
Bird, bert
But in Scottish English, /r/ doesn’t
influence vowel quality like it does in
Am Eng
Bird vs. bert

2. What are Nasalized
If velum is lowered
slightly to let part
of the air through
the nasal cavity, a
vowel will be
nasalized.
The amount the
velum is lowered
determines the
degree of
nasality.
Vowels?

Ladefoged
2001
Nasalized
vowels
often show
weaker
formants
and a
smaller
separation
of first and
second
formants
Examples of nasalized vowels in American English

Manyah, 2009: Vowels of Twi

French Nasal Vowels

American “Nasal” Vowels

Contextual nasalization
• In most languages, vowels are nasalized (to
an extent) before/after nasal consonants;
American English is a language is which
such non-contrastive nasalization is quite
extensive
• In French, vowels can also be contextually
nasalized when they occur between nasal
consonants, but the degree of nasal airflow
is not as strong as in a nasal vowel:
bo.nnet oral [bnEt]
no.nnette slightly nasal [nnEt]
non-être fully nasal [n)nEt]

Nasalization
Nasal airflow is measured with a nasal mask:
Oral vowel
Contextually
nasalized
vowel
‘real’ nasalized vowel

Some languages distinguish
between these three degrees of
nasalization: non-nasalized,
partially nasalized, and nasalized

Spectrogram of
Chinantec