Allophones of the English phonemes 1 Allophones of /p
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3. Vowel featuresThere are four dimensions to consider: vowel height, backness, rounding, and tensity. Vowel height is classified using the [high] and [low] features. Palatal and velar consonants are also [+high, -low] and, with the use of the [back] feature, a relationship can be established between high vowels and their corresponding glides:
(NB: [u] is presumed to be a back vowel here as in cardinal vowel 8). In different languages vowel systems can vary in terms two to four vowel height contrasts. Vowel systems with only two levels of height simply use [+high] or [-high] to represent high and low vowels respectively.
Vowels systems with three levels of height contrast use the features [high] and [low]. High vowels like [i u y ɯ] are [+high, -low]. Mid vowels like [e o] are neither high, nor low, i.e. [-high, -low]. And open vowels like [a ɑ] are [-high, +low].
Vowel systems with four levels of height contrast require a third feature [mid]. (This feature is additional to the set of features defined in Halle & Clements, but will be used in this course).
The question of vowel tensity is more controversial. In English there is a class of vowels which are more central in the vowel space and that cannot end monosyllabic words: in English, these include the short vowels [æ e ɪ ʊ ɔ ɐ] in 'had', 'head', 'hid', 'hood', 'hod', 'hud'. While that is perhaps not so controversial, the issue of whether they can be defined by an articulatory [-ATR] (minus advance tongue root), indicating that the tongue root is not drawn forward to the same degree as [+ATR] vowels (all the 'long' vowels that can end words in English) is a good deal more problematic. As Halle and Clements note, [ATR] appears to "... never co-occur distinctly in any language ..." with another feature pair "tense/lax" [+- tense]. Whilst the tense/lax distinction is also defined by Halle & Clements in articulatory terms similar to those used for [ATR], the use of the term "tense" versus "lax" to describe respectively the "long" and "short" vowels of English is very familiar to phoneticians. The use of an alternative feature pair "long/short" is avoided because some languages have a distinction between tense and lax vowels which do not appear to be realised acoustically in terms vowel duration (ie. long versus short). In this course the feature [tense] will be used rather than the feature [ATR]. Directory: newuploads newuploads -> Phonology What is Phonology? First we should know that the study of speech sounds is: 1- phonetics. 2- phonology. Phonetics is concerns with the following newuploads -> Ch. 1 Manufacturing Introduction : Manufacturing Download 0.83 Mb. Share with your friends:
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