Vowels: Cardinal Vowel
Chapter 4: The Vowels of English. An Articulatory Classification. Acoustic Correlates. The Description and Distribution of English Monophthongs and Diphthongs 4.1. The Vowels. Criteria for Classification 4.2. The Cardinal Vowel Charts 4.3. English Vowels. The description and distribution of English monophthongs and diphthongs A. English simple vowels a. English front vowels b. English back vowels c. English central vowels B. English diphthongs a. Centring diphthongs b. Diphthongs to /w/ c. Diphthongs to / Ÿ/ C. English triphthongs
4.3. English Vowels. The description and distribution of Englishmonophthongs and diphthongs
Having established the vowel chart as a basic system of reference we can now proceed to a brief description of the vowel phonemes of English and of their distribution in a manner similar to that used in the case of consonants. A. The English simple (“pure”) vowels or monophthongs. a. English front vowels. There are four front vowel phonemes in English: [i:], [ı], [e] and [æ] 1. [i:] is a close (high), long, tense, unrounded vowel. The duration of [i:] can be compared to that of the Romanian vowel in plural nouns like genii and the sound is roughly similar to the French vowel of the French word précise, though not so close. The vowel is distributed in all three basic positions: word-initial: east; word-medial: dean and word-final: sea. As already mentioned, it is longer if it occurs in syllable final position and shorter if it is followed by a voiced sound, the shortest variants being those followed by a voiceless obstruent. If followed by a nasal stop it is nasalized: e.g. bean, beam. It is spelt e: economy, remark, or ee: eel, see, feet, or ea each, seal, plea. Other possible spellings are ie: fiend, ei: seizing, i: machine, or, exceptionally: ey: key; ay: quay [ki:], eo: people, oe: Oedipus or eau: Beauchamp [bi:±cm]
2
[2]. This is a more retracted front vowel, and its degree of openness is close to that of the cardinal half-close
4.3. English Vowels. The description and distribution of Englishmonophthongs and diphthongs
Having established the vowel chart as a basic system of reference we can now proceed to a brief description of the vowel phonemes of English and of their distribution in a manner similar to that used in the case of consonants. A. The English simple (“pure”) vowels or monophthongs. a. English front vowels. There are four front vowel phonemes in English: [i:], [ı], [e] and [æ] 1. [i:] is a close (high), long, tense, unrounded vowel. The duration of [i:] can be compared to that of the Romanian vowel in plural nouns like genii and the sound is roughly similar to the French vowel of the French word précise, though not so close. The vowel is distributed in all three basic positions: word-initial: east; word-medial: dean and word-final: sea. As already mentioned, it is longer if it occurs in syllable final position and shorter if it is followed by a voiced sound, the shortest variants being those followed by a voiceless obstruent. If followed by a nasal stop it is nasalized: e.g. bean, beam. It is spelt e: economy, remark, or ee: eel, see, feet, or ea each, seal, plea. Other possible spellings are ie: fiend, ei: seizing, i: machine, or, exceptionally: ey: key; ay: quay [ki:], eo: people, oe: Oedipus or eau: Beauchamp [bi:±cm]
2
[2]. This is a more retracted front vowel, and its degree of openness is close to that of the cardinal half-close