Transcript Articulatory Phonetics - Sepuluh Nopember Institute of

Articulatory
Phonetics
English Vowels
Part 2
Defining Vowels
• Vowels are the most sonorant and
the most audible sounds in speech
• They are produced with a relatively
open vocal tract, so they do not have
a consonant like point of articulation
or manner of articulation, and they
are almost always voiced.
Cont’d
 There are several ways in which
speakers can change the shape of the
vocal tract, and thus change vowel
quality. They do this by:
1.Raising or lowering the body of the tongue
2.Advancing or retracting the body of the tongue
3.Rounding or not rounding the lips
4.Making these movements with a tense or a
lax gesture.
Vowel Chart
front
central
high
і
І
mid
е
ε
low
æ
lax
tense
ə
back
ū
u
ō
o
a
lax
tense
TONGUE HEIGHT
Vowel sounds of seat, set, sat –transcribed [ і ]
[ ε ] [æ]-if they are varied in terms of degrees of
openness correspond to different degrees of
tongue height: high, mid, low (i.e. subsequently)
High vowels when they are made with the front of
the mouth less open because the tongue body is
raised, or high.[і, І,ū, u]
Mid vowels when they are produced with an
intermediate tongue height.[е, ε, ə, ō, o ]
Low vowels are pronounced with the front of
mouth open and the tongue lowered.[æ, a]
TONGUE ADVANCEMENT
• The tongue is pushed forward or pulled
back within the oral cavity
• The tongue is advanced or pushed
forward for all the front vowels [і, І, е,
ε, æ]
• The tongue is retracted or pulled back
for the back vowels [ū, u, ō, o, a]
• The tongue is neither advanced nor
retracted [ ə ]
Lip Rounding

In the table the rounded vowels are marked
by the green fill (see table slide 4).
Tenseness
• Vowels are called tense when
produced with an extra degree of
muscular effort.
• Lax vowels lack this extra effort
DIPHTONGS
• Two-part vowel sounds consisting of a
vowel and a glide in the same syllable.
• [ay] in hide
• [aw] in loud
• [oy] in coin