Transcript Document

NORTH AMERICAN ENGLISH
VOWEL SYSTEMS
Subsystems of English vowels
English vowels
Short
Long
Upgliding
Front
upgliding
Back
upgliding
Long and
ingliding
THE PHONOTACTICS OF ENGLISH VOWELS
LONG VOWELS
heat hate height
heed hayed hide
he
hay
high
SHORT VOWELS
pit
pet
pat
bid
bead bad
*[pɪ] *[pɛ] *[pæ]
quote hoot
hoed who’d
hoe
who
pot
putt put
bod
bud
hood
*[po] *[pʌ] *[pʊ]
The basic condition
English words cannot end
with a stressed vowel
Phonemes of American English in broad IPA notation.
(Kurath 1977: 18-19)
Checked
Free
Front Back
Front Central Back
/ɪ/
/ʊ/
/i/
/e/
/ʌ/
/e/
/æ/
/ɑ/
/u/
/ɜ˞/
/o/
see
say
/ɔ/
Diphthongs
/ai/
/au/
/oi/
sigh
sow
soy
sue
so
saw
ANAE notation for the word classes of North American English
kid
could
keyed
Ked
cud
cade
cad
cod
suit
cooed
coy
code
hide
cowed
cawed
father
Distinctive features
JC Wells’ word classes for American English corresponding to ANAE notation
Representations of English vowels
i
ɪ
e
ɛ
æ
ɑ
ɔ
ʌ
o
ʊ
u
ai
aw
oy
FLEECE
KIT
Short
FACE
DRESS
TRAP LOT
THOUGHT
STRUT
GOAT
FOOT
i
u
GOOSE
e
ʌ
PRICE
MOUTH
æ
o
CHOICE
Long
Long and
ingliding
Upgliding
Front
upgliding
iw
uw
ih
uh
oy
ow
eh
oh
ay
aw
æh
ah
iy
ey
Back
upgliding
r-less
Organization of the long and ingliding vowels in an
r-ful Mid-Atlantic dialect
front
ih
idea
back
uh
skua
mid
eh
yeah
low æ
æh
calve
salve
halve
salmon
oh
law
thought
ah
o
balm
calm
almond
father
spa
bomb
Tom
common
bother
*
high
savvy
have
rather
baah
Vowel sub-systems before R
ihr
uhr
Intervocalic
iyrV
uwrV
ehr
ohr
irV
ɔhr
eyrV
ahr
erV
orV
ærV
arV
Coda
urV
beer
boor
nearer
Jewry
bare
four
mirror
jury
for
Mary
bar
merry
marry
Murray
/ohr/
ore
four
hoarse
mourning
source
core
cored
pork
/ɔhr/
or
for
horse
morning
force
corps
cord
storm
/ahr/
are
far
sparse
darning
farce
car
card
park
JC Wells’ word classes for American English corresponding to ANAE notation
Mean values of 14 vowels for 21 North American dialects