turkish phonology and morphology (türkçe ses ve b‹ç‹mb‹lg‹s‹)

Compare the position of the tongue for ‘i’ with [´]. Start with [´] and move to
‘i’. Notice that your tongue rises towards the roof of the mouth and the higher
point of the tongue moves forward. Hence, ‘i’ is described as a high front vowel.
Now try the same with the vowel ‘u’. As you go from [´] to ‘u’, the tongue is raised
but this time the higher point of the tongue moves towards the back of the mouth.
Thus, ‘u’ is called a high back vowel. Now compare [´] with ‘a’. To produce ‘a’, the
tongue lowers at the center of the mouth. Notice that [´] and ‘a’ are both central
vowels as shown in Figure 3.2. The difference between these two vowels is in the
height dimension. The height of a vowel correlates with jaw opening. The lower
the vowel is, the more open the jaw is. Compare ‘i’ and ‘a’ paying attention to jaw
opening. While the mouth is relatively closed for ‘i’, the mouth It is your opens turn! for ‘a’. ‘a’ is
therefore called a low vowel.
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a) How are vowels described?
b) What do the terms height and backness refer to?
HEIGHT
Front
cental back
i u
´
a
Unit 3 - Turkish Vowels
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Height refers to the height of the tongue body in the vocal tract. In vowels 3 there
are three heights: High, mid, low. For the production of high vowels the tongue
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is raised towards the roof of the mouth. When the tongue is lowered, to a lower
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position than that of [´], low vowels are produced. If the tongue height is similar
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to that of [´], then the vowel is a mid vowel.
The initial sounds of the following words contain high vowels; ‘isim’, ‘›rmak’,
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‘üzüm’, ‘umut’. The IPA symbols for these vowels are /i/, /µ/, It /y/, is your /u/, turn! respectively.
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Notice how the tongue is raised towards the roof of the mouth to form these 5 vowels.
The following words have mid vowels in word-initial position, ‘ekmek’, ‘övün’,
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‘orman’. Produce these vowels. When compared to [´], the It height is your turn! of the tongue
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for the mid vowels is the same as that of [´], which is also a mid vowel. 6 The IPA
symbols for the inital sounds of the above words are as follows: /E/, /ø/, /o/,
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respectively.
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Turkish has only one low vowel – ‘a’ as in ‘a¤la’. The IPA symbol for
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‘a’ is /a/.
Compare the production of vowel /a/ with /´/. For /a/, the jaw opens more than
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it does for [´].
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height
mid
low
Figure 3.2
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It is your turn! It is your turn!