What is a vowel?

When we first start off defining consonants we say that they are not central to the syllable. This
is a phonemic viewpoint. By contrast, the key phonological characteristic of vowels is that they
take the core of the syllable. So, if encountered a sequence like /kæt/, assuming that it is only one
syllable, we know that the peripheral elements are consonants and the central (core) element is a
vowel.

Phonetically, though, the picture is more challenging. By definition, a consonant is a speech

sound in whose production there is a stricture, i.e. some kind of blockage of the airflow.
Conversely, vowels are defined as having no such obstacle to the airflow.

Still, such a definition is deceptively simple in that it tells vowels apart from consonants but does
not allow us to see the similarities between both classes of speech sounds. Very much as we can
draw a relationship between plosives, fricatives and approximants, we can also relate vowels to
consonants. Essentially, vowels are sounds which are produced with a more open approximation
of the articulators than consonants, as a consequence they are related to central (median)
approximants like [w], [j] or [ɹ].

An additional characteristic of vowels is that they are normally voiced sounds (but voiceless
vowels do exist in some languages and they are transcribed using the devoiced diacritic [˳] ).

Vowel description

Because of the openness of the articulation (because of there being no contact between the
articulators central to their production), vowels are harder to plot in terms of place of
articulation. You may feel some contact in a few vowels such as /i:/ where the side rims of the
tongue touch the upper molars. While this contact does give a clue as to the correct articulation
of the vowel in question, it does not involve the main articulators (just consider that, in fact, the
absence of the upper molars would not make the slightest difference in a speaker’s ability to
produce this vowel).

It has always been known that vowels differ from each other only in sound quality. Sound
quality is a function of the shape of the mouth cavity. “How can the shape of the mouth cavity
change, though?” you must wonder. Well, very easily, by changing the relative configuration of
movable elements in the mouth.

As with consonants, in the articulation of vowels two articulators are involved. The active
articulator in all cases is the tongue and the passive articulator is the roof of the mouth (the hard
palate, the velum and, to some extent, the pharyngeal wall). It was with this information in mind
that, in 1917, Professor Daniel Jones first attempted at producing a system that would
revolutionise vowel description.
 Professor Daniel Jones (1881-1967)

The Cardinal Vowel System

Professor Jones first had to determine what the most extreme vowel qualities were. He did this
partly guided on his perception of sound quality added to the aid of the then newly-invented x-
ray photography. He produced qualities in which the tongue was highest and lowest in the mouth
cavity and where the highest point was maximally forward and maximally backward. He
determined the four most extreme vowel qualities to be

[i] (where the front of the tongue is highest right under the hard palate),
[a] (where the front of the tongue is lowest),
[ɑ] (where the back of the tongue is lowest, the tongue root retracted towards the
pharynx), and
[u] (where the back of the tongue is highest right under the velum).

In the following picture you can see the superimposed points of articulation of these vowels.

Jones determined that the vowel area, the area of the mouth in which vowels were produced,
was somewhat elliptical. This shape was rather impractical, so in the end a number of more
idealised trapezoid shapes have been used instead. The one currently in use by the International
Phonetic Association is depicted below.
But only 4 vowels can hardly be called a system, so Jones divided this area into a larger number
of cardinal points. In the end, his system comprises 18 cardinal vowels. The number is arbitrary.
It could well have been 15 or 35, but his idea was to keep it manageable for anyone doing
phonetics to learn and internalise, so that whenever encountering a new vowel quality they could
compare it against them.

The use of the term ‘cardinal’ is analogous with the cardinal points of the compass. Cardinal
vowels are ideal, extreme, reference vowel qualities against which to compare the vowels in any
language. At no point should you think of a cardinal vowel as the vowel of any language.
Vowels in languages change with time, depending on the speaker, etc. while cardinal vowels, as
ideal reference points, do not.

The first 8 cardinal vowels, which Jones called Primary Cardinal Vowels, plot the vowel area
at perceptually and articulatorily equidistant points. This means that they are felt to sound more
or less equidistant to the trained ear and that this was also proven to be the case using x-ray
photography.

Professor Jones designed the Primary Cardinal Vowels so that they would be related to those
sounds more frequently occurring in world languages in terms of lip position. The Secondary
Cardinal Vowels (nos. 9 through 16) take their same articulatory position but reverse lip
position. So, for example, cardinal vowel no. 9 has the same place of articulation as no. 1, which
is articulated with spread lips, but its lip position is rounded.

Cardinal vowels nos. 17 and 18 complete the extreme vowel space, again one has spread lips and
the other rounded lips.

The CV system as devised by Daniel Jones

I would like to emphasise the importance of the Cardinal Vowel System. On top of what has
already been said in its favour, I cannot but agree with Peter Roach, who states that cardinal
vowels help students of phonetics to be able to identify and tell apart many different vowel
qualities, therefore expanding their sensitivity both perceptually and analytically.

More on vowel description

As we have seen, vowel quality is attained by a particular configuration of the tube, i.e. by
placing the tongue in a certain position and shaping the lips as necessary.

Tongue position

Just to review what we saw until now, in the characterisation of a certain vowel quality, the
position of the tongue can be described in terms of the vertical position of the tongue, i.e. the
relative height from the roof of the mouth, and horizontal tongue position, i.e. the part of the
tongue which is raised the highest.

In terms of the first parameter, a vowel can be described as being close, close-mid, open-mid and
open. The terms correspond to the height of the corresponding cardinal vowels. Older terms
which you may come across for this parameter are high, mid-high, mid-low and low.

In terms of the part of the tongue which is involved in its production, a vowel can be referred to
as front, central or back, with these terms being directly drawn from those for the parts of the
tongue (as can be seen in the picture below).
Lip position

The lips may vary their position from spread (as when smiling) to rounded. Additionally, when
the lips are in their most normal position, i.e. that which is neither spread or rounded, we say
they are neutral. A variety of adjectives can also be used to describe intermediate positions, for
instance, slightly rounded or tightly spread.

Length

In English, length conveys important phonemic information. At one point in the history of the
language, length alone told vowels apart, now it works in conjunction with quality. The
difference between “sin” and “scene” is partly conveyed by the relative length of their vowels,
with the vowel in the second word being much longer than the one in the first.

Length also plays an important role at allophonic (phonetic) level, the so-called fortis clipping
effect affecting long vowels when followed by fortis consonants, which are rendered shorter than
when followed by lenis consonants or in open syllables. Thus, the vowel phoneme /i:/ in “scene”
[si:n] (preceding a lenis consonant) and “see” [si:] (in an open or unchecked syllable) is
considerably longer than the same vowel in “seat” [sit] or “seek” [sik] (both of which are
followed by a fortis consonant).
Length is not a relevant feature of Spanish, at least at at phonemic level. One may argue that as
Spanish has some obscuration (gradation), stronger vowels (vowels in tonic syllables of words)
have some additonal length if compared to weaker vowels. Such differences are clearly phonetic
as they do not carry any difference in meaning.

Tension

A vowel may be lax or tense. This is a feature that can be more easily felt than measured. It is a
sense of the relative tension of the muscles (the tongue included) when producing a certain
vowel sound. Tension has been said to be a distinctive feature of English vowels, with long
vowels being generally tense, whereas short vowels are generally lax.

Tension plays no distinctive role in Spanish.

Nasality

The sound quality produced in the oral cavity may also be somewhat modified by allowing some
air to go through the nasal cavity. Nasality is present whenever a vowel is followed by a nasal
consonant.

Compare the vowels in “bet” and “bent”. In the latter, the air is released both through the oral
and nasal cavities, giving it a distinctive quality. This occurs in Spanish as well; just compare
“quise” and “quince”. The diacritic we use to represent this feature is a tilde [˜] on top of the
vowel affected. Therefore, English “bent” is phonetically [bẽnt], and Spanish “quince” is
rendered as [‘kĩnse].

Additional materials

Read the following short article on the Cardinal Vowels.

http://englishspeechservices.com/blog/?p=4256

Listen to this historical recording of the cardinal vowels by Professor Jones here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UIAe4p2I74

Watch the following video, where you will see and hear the articulation of Cardinal Vowels
together with a complete explanation of the system, which goes a little further than the scope of
our lesson. You will realise that a few more vowels (central vowels) have been introduced. These
correspond to the current International Phonetic Association’s inventory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa5bG_wrK7s&feature=relmfu