Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology

J.Strssler
(Outline 4)

IV.

The Articulation of Vowel-Like Sounds and Their Representation

1.

Descriptive parameters of vowel-type sounds

1.1
Position of lips (spread = unrounded / rounded)
1.2
Part of tongue raised (front, central, back)
1.3
Degree of tongue raising (high/close, mid-high/half-closed, mid-low/half-open, low/open)

2.

IPA principles for the representation of vowel-type sounds

The relationship between vowels is described by plotting them on a quadrilateral, which
represents an abstract, notional 'vowel space'. This vowel space has a correlation, though
not an exact correspondence, with each of two aspects of the physical speech event of
vowels: the position of the tongue; and the acoustic (and, relatedly, auditory) reflex of a
vowel's production expressed as a plotting of its resonant frequencies. (The IPA
Handbook)
2.1

Three principal named degrees of frontness: back, central, front

2.2

Four principal named degrees of height: open (low), open-mid, close-mid, close (high).
Vowels half-way between close-mid and close may be referred to as near-close, vowels
half-way between open-mid and open as near-open.

2.3

Rounded vowels paired immediately to the right of their unrounded counterparts.

2.4

Eighteen peripheral vowels are symbolized with their reference quality indicated by a dot;
however, each is understood to have a domain of application whose extent is determined
by practical needs.

2.5

Reversed epsilon [3] is not placed on the quadrilateral but may be used as a symbol
additional to schwa [?] when a second symbol is needed for an unrounded vowel in the
mid-central region (as e.g. in English).

front

central

hzx

0 z|
HX

back

Lzt

close / high

dz1

close-mid / mid-high

?
Dz8

Uz N

open-mid / mid-low

@z P

open / low

z
`z %

(Outline 4a)
3.

Nasalisation
All vowels may be nasalised if the soft palate is lowered, so that part of the airstream is allowed to
escape through the nose. The diacritic [ ~] is placed over the vowel to indicate it is nasalised. The
common term used for nasalised vowels is nasal vowels.
Many languages contrast between nasal and oral vowels, e.g. French main [lD] (=hand) with
mets [lD] (=dish), or ment [l`] (= he lies) with mt [ ma ] (= mast).

4.

Semivowels
A semivowel is a kind of approximant, consisting of a non-syllabic vowel, occurring at the
beginning or the end of a syllable. They usually consist of a rapid glide from a high vowel
position to that of the following vowel. [ j ], [ w ] and [ G ] are the non-syllabic versions of the
high vowels [ i ], [ u ] and [ y ].