Further readings on this section

Phonetics and Phonology (ENG)



VU

Lesson-15
ENGLISH VOWELS-III


At the end of this section, the students will be able to
• EXPLAIN the fundamental features of Tense and Lax vowels (and their consonantal counterparts as
Fortis and Lenis) along with the rules for English vowel allophones.

Topic-077: Tense and Lax Vowels
Tense and Lax are the labels of strong and weak given to vowels on the basis of their behavior. This is one of the comparative features of sound setup by Jakobson and Halle in their distinctive feature theory of phonology to show variations in the manner of articulation for vowels. Lax sounds are produced with less muscular effort and movement, and are relatively short and indistinct vowel sounds (e.g., i, e,
ɒ, æ, ʌ, ʊ, ə vowels articulated near the center of the vowel area) compared to tense sounds (e.g., u, i,
ɜ:, a, ʊə, i. In other words, a lax vowel is said to be the one produced with relatively little articulatory energy. Since there is no established standard for measuring articulatory energy, this concept only has meaning if it is used in relation to some other sounds that are articulated with a comparatively greater amount of energy (the term tense is used for this. It is mainly American phonologists who use the terms lax and tense in describing English vowels. The terms can also be used for consonants as equivalent to fortis (tense) and lenis (lax, though this is not commonly done in present- day description.

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