Mundtlig Sprogproduktion 1

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Kim Ebensgaard Jensen

Aalborg Universitet

Vowels
1. What's a vowel?
A vowel is typically described as a sound in which there are no obstruents or closures in the
speech tract. Moreover, the vocal cords vibrate such that the pulmonic egressive airstream is
always voiced.
2. The dimensions of vowels
Vowels are normally described in terms of a vertical dimension called the open-close dimension (or
the high-low dimension) and a horizontal one called the front-back dimension. These dimensions
are relative to the position of the tongue in the mouth, the tongue being the primary active
articulator (apart from cords of course).
2.1 Open-close dimension
The open-close dimension, also called the high-low dimension has to do with the vertical position
of the tongue in the mouth when producing a vowel. It is divided into four positions:

close, or high: the tongue is raised as much as possible towards the roof of the mouth from
its natural resting position without touching it
half-close, or medium high: the tongue is raised slightly above the natural resting position
but not as high as the close position
half-open, or medium low: the tongue is lowered slightly below the natural resting position
but not as low as the open position mentioned below
open, or low: the tongue is lowered from its natural resting position (and often the jaw drops
too).

2.2 Front-back dimension

The front-back dimension has to do with which part of the tongue (in a horizontal perspective) is
raised or lowered. There are three dimensions here:

front: the front of the tongue is the raised or lowered part

central: the transition area between the front and the back of the tongue is the raised or
lowered part
back: the back of the tongue is the raised or lowered part

2.3 Vowel diagrams

These dimensions are captured in vowel diagrams. A vowel diagram is a representation of the
mouth as seen in profile from the left side and vowels are plotted into the diagram in accordance
with their position of articulation in relation to the vertical and horizontal dimensions:

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Kim Ebensgaard Jensen

Aalborg Universitet

The vowel is also based on something called cardinal vowels. Cardinal vowels are the vowels that
are produced in the most extreme positions in the two dimensions. There are eight cardinal vowels:

3. Lips
The lips are also important to the production of vowels. The position of the lips can change the
sound of a vowel completely even if you don't move your tongue. For example, if you pronounce [i]
with rounded lips it becomes [y], known from 'ny' in Danish.
There are three positions for the lips:

rounded: the lips are pushed forwards and rounded (like when you whistle a melody or
something)
neutral: the lips are almost completely relaxed
spread: the lips are parted kind of in the same fashion as when you're smiling

Often neutral and spread are conflated under unrounded.

4. Length
Length simply has to do with the duration of the individual vowel. In some languages length is a
distinctive feature. Such that a word with a long vowel means something different from the same
word with a short version of the same vowel.
This does not apply to English, but a division is nevertheless made between short and long
vowels in English.

Mundtlig Sprogproduktion 1
Engelsk Almen

Kim Ebensgaard Jensen

Aalborg Universitet

5. Vowels
5.1 Monophthongs vs diphthongs
A monopthong is a vowel in which the tongue remains in the same position all the time.
Monopthongs are contrasted with diphthongs. A diphthong is a a vowel that consists of two vowels
such that there is a glide from one vowel into the other. 'Glide' means that the tongue and other
active articulators change from the position of the first vowel into that of the other vowel. This
produces a gliding kind of sound.
5.2 Monophthongs
We are now able to describe the long and short monophthongs of English. Whereas the consonants
are more or less uniform across RP and GA, there are a number of differences in terms of vowels.
Short front vowels:

Short central vowels:

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Short back vowels:

Long front vowels:

Long central vowels:

Long back vowels:

Kim Ebensgaard Jensen

Aalborg Universitet

Mundtlig Sprogproduktion 1
Engelsk Almen

Kim Ebensgaard Jensen

Aalborg Universitet

Exercises:
Plot all the monophthongs listed above into the vowel diagram below:

Transcribe the following words: Transcribe the following words: Bad, Badge, Bed
Bid, Book, Bull, Cap, Cod, Cot, Cough, Cub, Cud, Cuff, Cup, Cup, Cut, Dinner, Don, Done,
Donkey, Dumb, Fell, Fit, Font, Full, Fund, Gas, Gone, Good, Gun, Had, Head, Hid, Hit,
Kill, Lack, Leg, Less, Listen, Lock, Look, Luck, Lung, Mad, Man, Mass, Match, Mess, Miss,
Monkey, Much, Music, Pat, Pat, Pet, Pig, Pit, Push, Putt, Rung, Sam, Send, Shook, Shot,
Shut, Spill, Sum, Tally, Tan, Ten, Till, Tin, Tuck, Tug, Vest, Wrong

Transcribe the following words: beggars, biology, cistern, colours, ensign, western,
gathered, about, powerful, retribution
(Hint: all of these words are polysyllabic, which means that the schwa may occur in weak
syllables.)

5.3 Diphthongs
There are two major types of diphthongs in English centring and closing diphthongs. In the
former, the final element of the diphthong is schwa, while in the latter it is either
RP generally has more diphthongs than GA. This is because final /r/ is pronounced in GA
but not in RP. This means that in many (but not all) cases where what should have been an /r/ is a
schwa in stead, such that the schwa and the preceding vowel end up forming a diphthong.

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Front-closing diphthongs:

Centring diphthongs:

Kim Ebensgaard Jensen

Aalborg Universitet

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Kim Ebensgaard Jensen

Aalborg Universitet

Back-closing diphthongs:

Exercises:
Transcribe the following words: Air, Bare,Beer, Boil, Boy, Break, Care, Clay, Coil, Curious,
Dare, Die, Fair, Fear, Fly, Gaelic, Gale, Gauge, Great, Height, Hole, Howl, Loin, Male,
Mind, Moor, Museum, Near, Oyster, Poor, Real, Sew, Sleight, Spear, Steak
Write the following words in ordinary orthography (note, these words are transcribed in
RP): /ad/, /ba/, /br/, /dat/, / s/, /a
t/, //, /ge/, /gelk/, /gret/, /kwat/,
/km/, /me/, /pat/, /pnt/, /p s/, /pj/, /rm/, /sad/, /ske s/, /stek/, /t/,
/t/, /t/

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Kim Ebensgaard Jensen

Aalborg Universitet

6. Vowels and unnaccented syllables

There is a tendency for monophthongs to become weakened in unaccented syllables. This means
that, in unnaccented syllables most vowels are reduced to a schwa. Morphology is one factor in the
weakening of vowels:

derivational morphology: often if a derivational suffix is aded to a word, it will cause a shift
in syllable distribution: acid acidity (the // in the first syllable is reduced to a schwa)
compounding: in compounds, the main syllable of one of the compounded words (often, but
not always, the last one) is often reduced: milk + man milkman (the // in 'man' is
reduced to a schwa)

In connected speech, certain vowels which are placed in weakly accented syllables in the utterance
will be reduced to weaker vowels, the schwa being the ultimate reduced vowel in most cases.
For instance, 'to' follows this reduction pattern: /tu:/ /t/ /t/ and would be pronounced
as /t/ or /t/ in an utterance like I like to move it. Was follows this pattern of reduction /wz/
/wz/ in an utterance like He was being taken care off as we spoke. Not all vowels are reduced
to a schwa though. The high front vowels tend to be reduced to /I/ as in /hi:/ /hI/. 'You' follows
this pattern: /ju:/ /j/ (but I have heard it reduced even to /j/). Actually, many grammatical
forms in English have two versions an accented version and an unaccented version (these are
listed in Davidsen-Nielsen's book on pp. 92-94.
Exercise: transcribe the following utterances, taking into account accented and unaccented
syllables:

Can I have a beer, please?

I told you to stop cyberstalking me.
Who said that the skies are blue?
I told you to forget it.
I'm craving organic food and healthy smoothies, she said.