Re: Important Question (was Re: Stupid Question of the Week) Saul Epstein Thu, 06 Nov 1997 18:44:00 -0600 At 08:52 AM 11/6/97 -0600, Rob wrote: >Saul, if you could give us a review of how Linguists measure vowels, >I'd appreciate it. I still get confused about those. I'll start by reprinting some material from a previous message (with a small correction: ---- Here's a facsimile of the IPA vowel chart. front center back close i---------+----------u \ I \ U | close-mid e-----------------o \ * | open-mid E--------------) ae \ | open A-----------a The position of these signs depends on the position of the tongue in the mouth when producing different vowels. i in beat I in bit ei in bait E in bet ae in bat A -- a Kennedy says "bark" * in butt u in boot U in butcher ou in boat ) in bought a in botch ---- OK. What is generally agreed about vowels is that their place of articulation varies along two axes: front-back and close-open (also often described as high-low). These axes describe the position of the tongue in the mouth. Front vowels are produced through the placement of the entire tongue forward, and sometimes by the raising or lowering of the front part of the tongue from a relaxed position. Back vowels are produced through the placement of the entire tongue backward, and sometimes by the raising or lowering of the back part of the tongue from a relaxed position. Central vowels are produced with the tongue relaxed as far as front-back is concerned, and sometimes by the raising or lowering of the center of the tongue from a relaxed position. High or close vowels are produced by the raising of part of the tongue, and sometimes through the placement of the entire tongue backward or forward. Low or open vowels are produced by the lowering of part of the tongue (actually a downward tensing) and sometimes through the placement of the entire tongue backward or forward. Some other agreed on features include lip-rounding, nasalization, pitch, and length. Length is often a source of confusion for educated English speakers because of the use of the terms "long" and "short" to partly handle the fact that English has more vowels than it has letters to write them with. Phonetically, long vowels are literally longer, that is, of greater duration, than short vowels. Languages may distinguish more than two degrees of length. But generally speaking, vowels of any length can occur in any place. Because vowels are produced with much less restriction of the air-stream in the mouth than consonants, they are more open to various kinds of restriction at the glottis, resulting in different voices. Usually vowels are voiced -- in fact the words are related. Vowels can, however, be voiceless. In fact, it has been argued that [h] is actually a voiceless vowel and that there are as many different [h]s as there are vowels. Between the two values available to consonants, vowels can be given a "breathy" or "murmured" voice, as well as a "creaky" voice. These other kinds of voice show up in some African languages. Beyond these, and other features I am forgetting or don't know, there are arguments. Some have tried to organize vowels into "tense" vowels and "lax" vowels. Vowels can be pharyngealized, in which case the root of the tongue constricts the pharynx. Such vowels are sometimes called rhoticized or "r-colored." But those who see the distinctive character of "r" in the curling of the tongue use such terms to describe that position -- as well as the term "retroflex" which should probably be reserved for consonants. Oh, let me also point out that the example words above may not be helpful because of variations in dialect. It might be more helpful to come up with examples from Spanish -- but I'm not as familiar with Spanish, and I'm reasonably sure that it is "missing" several of these vowels. This may also help: IPA* Modified ZC i ii I i e ee E e ae a? A a? * ^ u uu U u o oo ) o a aa *These are readily available ASCII characters which bear various degrees of similarity to the IPA symbols. I is a capital i, but printed at a "lower case" size. E is a cursive epsilon. ae is run together as one symbol. A is a lower case, "Times" style a. * is a lower case e rotated 180 degrees. U is usually written as a cursive upsilon. ) is a lower case c rotated 180 degrees. a is a lower case "italic" style a -- but one which doesn't lean! If you get a chance and are curious, the International Phonetic Association has charts with all these symbols on their web site at http://www,arts,gla,ac,uk/IPA/ipachart,html Hope this helps. -- from Saul Epstein liberty uit net www johnco cc ks us sepstein "Surak ow'phaaper thes'hi thes'tca'; thes'phaadjar thes'hi suraketca'." -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at