PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

LECTURE 6
Resource Person: Mahwish Farooq
VOWELS
 VOCALIC INVENTORY
• Phonetically vowels are the sounds produced without making any
constriction.

• Phonologically, vowels occupy the central position in a syllable by

making predominance.

• Languages have mostly double number of vowels than consonants.

 ENGLISH VOCALIC INVENTORY
• British English has 12 vowels but other accents may have different
number of vowels.

• All vowels are voiced but it’s not a distinctive feature therefore, a number
of elements are combined together to evaluate a phoneme.

• Consequently, the Sound quality of a language is based on the

intensity, pitch, loudness, voice and frequency of the vowel.

• All English vowels are oral because articulated with open oral tract along
with slight movements of lips and tongue (Roach, Long Vowels,
Diphthongs and Triphthongs, 2009).
 VOWEL CLASSIFICATIONS
Vowels can be divided on three manners;

1. Height of the tongue

2. Frontness/backness of the tongue

3. Lips’ movement
 6

Vowels:
 
(1) the height to which the body of the tongue is raised,
whether it is high, low, or in between (mid);

(2) how forward the body of the tongue is, whether it is

on front (advanced), centre, or back (retracted);

(3) whether the lips are rounded or stretched.

 CARDINAL VOWELS
• Vowel quadrilateral is in fashion to use for identifying places and manners of
articulation.

• In English, vowel chart is presented in form of trapezium.

• Daniel Jones invented 18 reference vowels, called cardinal vowels for

describing actual vowels of any spoken language.

• But cardinal vowels illustrate only the extremes of vowel quality which is possible
for vocal tract to produce.

• It is also important that cardinal vowels are not sounds of a specific language.

• Although, phoneticians had used these artificial sounds for making better
understanding to describe all natural vowels in relation to their nearest possibility.
 CARDINAL VOWELS
• Moreover, the cardinal vowels are extremes therefore occupy the edges of chart.

• They can be numbered in counter-clockwise direction by starting from the upper left
corner.

• Cardinal vowels can be represented with the phonetic symbols.

• Fortunately or unfortunately, some of these symbols are identical with the English
phonetic symbols but their quality is totally different.

• Therefore, the cardinal vowels are usually enclosed in square brackets because they are
not part of any language phonology.

• So, a vowel symbol in square brackets is representing a cardinal vowel but symbol in
slanted lines is actual vowel of a specific language.
A VOWEL CHART WITH ALL CARDINAL VOWELS
 CARDINAL VOWELS
• Cardinal vowels can be divided in two different categories;

1. Primary cardinal vowels

2. Secondary cardinal vowels

 PRIMARY CARDINAL VOWELS
• The primary cardinal vowels are 8 in number i.e.
1. open front,
2. close front,
3. mid-open front,
4. mid-close front,
5. open back,
6. mid-open back,
7. mid-close back, and
8. close back.
• In the figure, Vowels at 1 to 5 positions are articulated with unrounded
lips and 6 to 8 with rounded lips.
• Therefore, the primary cardinal vowels seem familiar to the articulations
of European native speakers.
PRIMARY CARDINAL VOWELS
 SECONDARY CARDINAL VOWELS
• The secondary cardinal vowels are 9 to 16 and occupy the same
positions similar to the primary cardinal vowels but we are not familiar
with them due to the reversed shape of lips.

• For example, vowels 9 to 13 are produced with rounded lips but 14 to 16

with unrounded lips.

• The two remaining cardinal vowels 17 and 18 are close central vowels
with unrounded and rounded lips respectively.
 VOCALIC MANNERS OF
ARTICULATION
• According to Roach (2009), the coordinated movements of tongue and
lips give different shapes of the mouth.

• There are three criteria for the description of vocalic phonemes.

1. closeness verses openness,

2. frontness verses backness, and

3. lips’ shape.
 (1) CLOSENESS VERSES OPENNESS
Closeness verses openness refers the distance between tongue and palate along with
the position of the lower jaw.

i. If the tongue is high and close to the palate than a close vowel will be articulated.

ii. If the position of the tongue is lower by showing minimum gap with palate than
open vowel will be articulated.

iii. Three intermediate levels are also existed between these two extremes i.e.

a) if the tongue is in a mid-high position than the resultant sound is a mid-close vowel, or half-
close vowel.

b) If tongue position is mid-low means a bit higher than low position than mid-open vowel or
half-open vowel will be perceived.

c) Mid-vowel is pronounced when tongue height is almost between mid-high and mid-low.
 (II) FRONTNESS VERSES BACKNESS

Frontness verses backness refers to the part of tongue which raises

high i.e.

i. the front of tongue pushes forward the tongue body for uttering front
vowels and

ii. the back of tongue raises high by pulling back in order to articulate a back
vowels.

iii. Between these two extreme conditions, if the center of the tongue is raises
high then a central vowels will be uttered.
 (III) LIPS’ SHAPE
Lips’ Shape may be spread, neutral, or rounded for articulating a vowel.

• Although, English is not utilizing all these contrast randomly.

1. But in other languages, the spreading of the lips normally correlates with
the front vowels and

2. lip-rounding with the back vowels.

Note: In other words, English has no vowel phoneme which can differ on
the bases of lips’ shape therefore this is an irrelevant criterion for English.
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DIAGRAM OF ENGLISH VOWELS
 COMPARISON OF /I:/ VS /ɪ/

• Urdu
• /ʤi:t̪/ vs /d̪ ɪn̪ /
• /ri:t ̪/ vs /ɪn̪ /

• Punjabi
• /d̪ i:n̪ / vs /ʤɪt ̪/
• /bi:n̪ / vs /pɪt ̪/
• English
• /ni:t/ vs /nɪb/
• /pi:k/ vs /pɪk/
/E=Ɛ/ AND /Æ /
 SPELLING /E = Ɛ/
• Common:
• -ɛ end, bed, letter
• -ɛ dead, health, deaf, jealous
• Less common:
• - ɛ any, ate, Thames, Pall Mall
• - ɛ said, against
• - ɛ says
• - ɛ leisure, heifer, Leicester
• - ɛ leopard, jeopardy
• - ɛ bury
 COMPARISON IN/Ɛ/ AND /Æ/

• Urdu
/ʃæ:hɛd̪ / /æ:hɛd̪ /
Punjabi
/ʃæ:d̪ / /ʃɛr/
• English:
/tæ:nɪs/ /tɛst/
 /ʌ / AND /ɑ: /
FRONT CENTRAL BACK

CLOSE

MID-OPEN

OPEN
 SPELLING /Λ/
• Common:
• -u up, begun, luck, republic, frustrate

• Less common:
• -o onion, come, among, ton, won
• -ou enough, double, touch, southern
• -oe does
• -oo blood, flood
 COMPARISON
•  
 SPELLING /ɑ:/
• Common:
• -ar art, park, star, argue, departure
• -a after, staff, father, class, gasp, answer

• Less common:
• -al calf, half, calve, halve, salve, calm, palm
• are are
• -au aunt, laugh, draught
 COMPARISON OF /A:/ VOWEL

• Urdu
• /ba:p/ /a:p/

• Punjabi
• /t ̪a:p/ /ka:l/

• English
• /a:ftə(r)/ /ha:f/
 /ɒ/ AND /Ɔ:/
FRONT CENTRAL BACK

CLOSE

MID-OPEN

OPEN
 SPELLING /ɒ OR O/
• Common:
• -o ox, not, doll, shone, gone

• Less common:
• -au sausage, Austria, Laurence
• -ow knowledge
 COMPARISON /ɒ OR O/ VOWEL

• Urdu
• /∫or/ /mor/

• Punjabi
• /koɽ/ /hor/

• English
• /mok/ /oks/
 SPELLING /Ɔ:/

• Common examples
• -or or, form, cord, sort
 COMPARISON OF /Ɔ:/ VOWEL

• Urdu
• /ɔ:r/ /sɔ:/

• Punjabi
• /kɔ:ɽa:/

• English
• /f ɔ:m/ /kɔ:rd/
 /Ʊ/ AND /U:/
FRONT CENTRAL BACK

CLOSE

MID-OPEN

OPEN
 SPELLING /℧/
• Common:
• -oo good, book, took, foot, stood
• -u put, full, pull

• Less common:
• -ou could, should, would
• -o woman, wolf, Wocester
 SPELLING /U:/

• Common:
• -oo tool, roof, zoo, food, boot
• -u plume, rule, June, rude
• -ew flew, chew, Jew, grew
• -o do, move, Domesday
• -ue blue, true, sue
• -oe shoe, canoe
 COMPARISON /Ʊ/ AND/U:/
VOWELS
• Urdu
• /ʧʊp/ /bͪu:l/

• Punjabi
• /d̪ ͪ ʊp/ /t ̪u:l/

• English
• /tʊk/ /tu:l/
 /ɜ:/ AND /Ə/
FRONT CENTRAL BACK

CLOSE

MID-OPEN

OPEN
Common SPELLING /З:/
• -ur curly, fur, occur, urn
• -urr purr, ocurred
• -er permit, person, refer, Ernest
• -errerr, referred
• -ir dirty, firm, sir
• -ear search, earth, rehearse, earn
• -or word, work, worse, attorney
• Less common:
• -our courtesy, journal
• -ere were
• -olo colonel
 COMPARISON /ɜ:/ VOWEL

• /ɜ:/ vowel does not exist in Urdu and Punjabi because we articulate /r/ sound
very clearly therefore /ɜ:/ is replaced with other vowels.

• English
• /sɜ:/ /bɜ:d/
 SUMMARY OF VOWELS
• Monophthongs
• Diphthongs
• 12 monophthongs: 7 short: ɪ, e, æ, ʌ , ɒ, ʊ, ә
and 5 long: i: , ɑ: , ɔ: , з: , u:

• 7 diphthongs: 5 closing: eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ, aʊ, әʊ

• and 2 (3) centring: eә, ɪә, (ʊә)