Topic-033: The Articulation of Vowel Sounds In the articulation of vowels, the articulators do not come close together and the air stream is relatively undisturbed. Vowels are the class of sounds which make the least obstruction to the flow of air. They are almost always found at the center of a syllable, and it is rare to find any sound other than a vowel which is able to standalone as a whole syllable. In phonetic terms, each vowel has a number of properties that distinguish it from other vowels. These include (firstly) the shape of the lips, which maybe rounded (as for u vowel, neutral (as for / ə/) or spread (as in i vowel. Secondly, the front, the middle or the back of the tongue maybe raised, giving different vowel qualities the BBC vowel in (cat) is a front vowel, while the ɑ: in cart is aback vowel. Thirdly, the tongue (and the lower jaw) maybe raised close to the roof of the mouth, or the tongue maybe left low in the mouth with the jaw comparatively open. Lip rounding may also be important in the description of vowel sounds in some languages.
