English Phonetics PDF

3 English Phonetics: Vowels (i) 3.1 The Primary Cardinal Vowels Let us begin by assuming that all vowels are voiced and are articulated with a constriction of open approximation. We will also assume, for the moment, that all vowels are oral sounds (i.e. that the velum is raised during their pro...

3 English Phonetics: Vowels (i) 3.1 The Primary Cardinal Vowels Let us begin by assuming that all vowels are voiced and are articulated with a constriction of open approximation. We will also assume, for the moment, that all vowels are oral sounds (i.e. that the velum is raised during their production). The range of positions which the tongue can occupy within the oral cavity while remaining in a constriction of open approximation is quite large. Let us call the entire available space for such articulations the vowel space. We will require a means of plotting the point at which a given vowel is articulated in the vowel space. In order to do this, we will appeal to an idealized chart of that space, as follows (this chart is repeated in the IPA chart in figure 2): (1) The vowel space and the primary cardinal vowels 59  In this diagram, we represent the vowel space along two dimensions. The first is the high/low dimension (also referred to as the close/open dimension), depicting the height of the body of the tongue during the articulation of a vowel (i.e. depicting vowel height). This is represented as the vertical axis in the diagram. The second is the front/back dimension, depicting the extent to which the body of the tongue lies towards the front of the vowel space. This is represented as the horizontal axis in the diagram. We may identify three arbitrary points along this dimension: front, central and back. In using these two dimensions, we can say, for any given vowel, how high in the vowel space it is articulated, and whether it is a front, central or back vowel. To these two descriptive parameters, we will add a third, which refers to lip position: we will say, for a given vowel, whether, during its articulation, the lips are rounded or not. We will refer to the former sort of vowel as a rounded vowel and the latter as an unrounded vowel. It is convenient to identify several points along the perimeter of the vowel space. Once we have done this, we can plot the location of any given vowel in relation to those points. Vowels articulated at those points are called the cardinal vowels. We will now identify eight of them. 60  Let us begin with the vowel which is produced when the lips are unrounded and the tongue is located as high as possible and as front as possible, without causing friction, in the vowel space. This is cardinal vowel no. 1, depicted at the top left- hand corner of the diagram in (1) above. That vowel is transcribed as [i]. Using our three descriptive parameters, we will refer to this as a high front unrounded vowel. We will not seek to exemplify cardinal vowels with words from English, or any other language, since, typically, speakers do not utter vowel sounds which are quite as peripheral in the vowel space as the cardinal vowels. Rather, we will plot the place of articulation of English vowels in relation to the cardinal vowels, using the vowel space diagram as a map of the vowel space. The vowel in many English speakers’ pronunciation of the word peep, for instance, is quite close to cardinal vowel no. 1: it too is a high front rounded vowel, but it is not quite as peripheral as cardinal vowel no. 1: it is typically slightly less high and slightly less front in its articulation. Let us now identify the cardinal vowel which lies at the ‘opposite end’ of the vowel space: the vowel which is produced when the lips are unrounded and the body of the tongue is as low as possible and as far back as possible, without causing friction. This is cardinal vowel no. 5. Its location is depicted at the bottom right-hand corner of the diagram in (1) above. Transcribed as [ɑ], it is a low back unrounded vowel. We have now identified two ‘anchor’ points in the vowel space; we may now proceed to identify further cardinal vowels in relation to these. If the lips remain unrounded and the body of the tongue remains as low as possible in the vowel space (as for cardinal vowel no. 5), but the tongue is moved as far to the 61 front of that space as is possible without causing friction, then cardinal vowel no. 4 is produced. It is transcribed as [a]. We have now identified two vowel heights: high and low. You should be able to feel this difference in tongue height if you utter cardinal vowel no. 1 followed by cardinal vowel no. 4: the jaw opens considerably and the body of the tongue lowers considerably as one moves from the former to the latter. There is a continuum of vowel heights between these two heights; we will identify two arbitrary points along this continuum: high-mid and low-mid. If the lips remain unrounded and the body of the tongue remains as far front as is possible, but the tongue height is lowered somewhat from the cardinal vowel no. 1 position, one arrives at the front, high-mid unrounded vowel known as cardinal vowel no. 2. This is transcribed as [e]. In retaining the same lip position and the same degree of frontness, one may lower the body of the tongue further still to the low-mid position, and arrive at the front low-mid unrounded vowel known as cardinal vowel no. 3. This is transcribed as [ε]. If you articulate cardinal vowel no. 1, then cardinal vowels nos. 2, 3 and 4, you should feel the body of the tongue lowering progressively. These are all front unrounded vowels: the difference between them lies in the height of the tongue. Let us now consider the back cardinal vowels. If the body of the tongue is as high as possible and as far back as possible without causing friction, and the lips are, this time, rounded, then cardinal vowel no. 8 is produced. This high back rounded vowel is transcribed as [u]. If the lips remain rounded and the tongue remains as far back as possible, but the tongue height is lowered to the high- 62 mid position, cardinal vowel no. 7 is produced. This high- mid back rounded vowel is transcribed as [o]. In retaining the same degree of backness and the same lip position, one may lower the height of the tongue still further, to the low-mid position, and thus produce the low-mid back rounded vowel known as cardinal vowel no. 6. This is transcribed as [ɔ]. You should be able to feel the tongue lowering progressively as you make the transition from cardinal vowel no. 8, through cardinal vowel no. 7, to cardinal vowel no. 6; the tongue goes through the same lowering process as it does for the transition from cardinal vowel no. 1, through no. 2, to no. 3. We have now identified the eight primary cardinal vowels. With these reference points established, we may describe the articulation of specific English vowels in relation to them. Let us begin by looking at those referred to as the English short vowels. 3.2 RP and GA Short Vowels There is considerable variation in the vowel sounds uttered by speakers of different accents of English, and we will be considering that variation in later chapters. For the moment, we will begin with two particular accents; we will later describe others. We will, somewhat arbitrarily, begin with the accents known as Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA). RP is the accent often referred to as the ‘prestige’ accent in British society and associated with the speech of the graduates of the English public schools. It is thus defined largely in terms of the social class of its speakers. We 63 do not select it as one of our starting points for that reason; rather, we select it as it tends to be the accent which foreign learners of British English are taught, and has thus been widely described. GA tends to be defined in terms of the geographical location, rather than the social class, of its speakers. The term ‘GA’ is an idealization over a group of accents whose speakers inhabit a vast proportion of the United States: it excludes Eastern accents such as the New York City accent, and Southern accents (such as that spoken in Texas). It has often been pointed out that terms such as ‘RP’ and ‘GA’ entail a great deal of idealization, in that they are used to cover a variety of somewhat different, if converging, accents. We accept this as inevitable: it will be true of any term we use to describe an accent (e.g. ‘New York City’, ‘Cockney’, ‘Scouse’, ‘Geordie’, ‘South African’, etc.) and indeed it is true of the term ‘accent’ itself. But we need some way of expressing valid generalizations about the speech sounds which members of different speech communities utter. For instance, it is generally true that, while RP speakers pronounce put and putt differently, many speakers with accents found in the North of England do not. To refuse to speak of different accents would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and to deny ourselves the opportunity of expressing statements which are informative, if subject to certain caveats. We have said nothing, as yet, about the length of vowels. For speakers of RP and GA, the vowels in peep and pip differ in several respects, one of which is vowel length. If you are an RP or a GA speaker, and you utter the two words, you will probably agree that the vowel in the former is longer than that in the latter. We will, accordingly, refer to the former as a long vowel and the latter as a short vowel. Vowel length is a relative 64 matter: when we say that the vowel in pip is a short vowel, we are not referring to its duration in milliseconds; rather, we are saying that it is short in relation to other vowels, such as that in peep. The vowel in pip is typically articulated with the body of the tongue fairly front and fairly high, and with the lips unrounded. We will transcribe that vowel as [ɪ]. While it is a high front unrounded vowel, it is less high and less front than the vowel in peep. Its location is depicted in (2) below. Now consider the vowel in RP and GA speakers’ pronunciation of the vowel in the word put. This is, for many speakers, a high back rounded vowel, articulated in the region near to cardinal vowel no. 8. It is similar to the vowel in school, but less high and less back. It is also shorter than that in school. We will transcribe this short vowel as [ʊ]; its location is depicted in (2) below. For RP and GA speakers, there is a distinction between the vowel in put and that in putt. Both are short vowels, but they differ in several respects. Firstly, the latter vowel is unrounded. Secondly, the vowel in putt is articulated with a fairly low tongue height: typically, it is just below the low-mid position. Thirdly, the vowel in putt is located at around the half-way point on the front/back axis. We will refer to vowels located in this region as central vowels. We will transcribe this vowel as [ʌ]; its location is depicted in (2) below. In both RP and GA, the vowels in aunt and ant differ. Both vowels are unrounded, but the vowel in ant is shorter than that in aunt, and the vowel in ant is a low front vowel, whereas that in aunt is a low back vowel. The low front unrounded vowel in 65 ant is articulated higher and less front than cardinal vowel no. 4. We will transcribe this as [æ]; its location is depicted in (2) below (although the GA vowel is higher than the RP vowel, and sounds rather [ε]-like to British speakers). The short vowel in RP and GA speakers’ pronunciation of the word bet is a front unrounded vowel, whose height is somewhere between cardinal vowels nos. 2 and 3. For most RP and GA speakers, it is closer to cardinal vowel no. 3 than to cardinal vowel no. 2 in height; it is also somewhat more centralized than cardinal vowel no. 3. For convenience’ sake, we will transcribe it as [ε]; its location is depicted in (2) below. The short vowel in the RP speaker’s pronunciation of the word pot is a back rounded vowel which is articulated with a tongue height somewhere between low and lowmid (i.e. between cardinal vowels nos. 5 and 6). It is transcribed as [ɒ]; its location is given in (2) below. This vowel is absent from the GA system: GA speakers have the vowel [ɑ] in words such as pot. [ɑ] is a short back rounded low vowel. (2) RP and GA short vowels We have used the words pit, pet, pat, pot, putt and put to 66 illustrate these vowels, since these words differ in pronunciation only with respect to the vowel. In discussing vowels, we will also adopt the lexical sets adopted by Wells (1982; see Suggested Further Reading). These are key words selected by Wells to bring out the similarities and differences between RP and GA. We will therefore, at times, refer to the vowel in words such as pit as the KIT vowel. The vowel in words such as pet we will call the DRESS vowel; words such as pat have the TRAP vowel; words such as pot have the LOT vowel; words such as put have the FOOT vowel, and words such as putt have the STRUT vowel. There is one further vowel sound, indicated above, which we must consider at this stage. It is the first vowel sound which occurs in most speakers’ pronunciation of the word about. This vowel is referred to as schwa; it is produced without lip rounding, and with the body of the tongue lying in the most central part of the vowel space, between high-mid and low- mid, and between back and front. Schwa is transcribed as [ə]. This vowel is typically even shorter than the short vowels we have just described, and it differs from those in that it may never occur in a stressed syllable (in about, it occurs in the unstressed first syllable; in elephant, it occurs in the unstressed second syllable; in Belinda, it occurs in the unstressed initial and final syllables). This vowel occurs in the speech of almost every speaker of English; in later chapters, we will consider its relation to English stressed vowels in more detail. 67 Exercises 1 Describe the position of the body of the tongue and the lips in the production of the following vowels: [i] (cardinal vowel no. 1) [u] (cardinal vowel no. 8) [ɑ] (cardinal vowel no. 5) 2 Give an appropriate vowel symbol for the vowel in each of the following words, as you would utter them. Say (a) whether the vowel is rounded or not, (b) how back or front it is, and (c) how low or high it is (do this in relation to the cardinal vowels): pit apt stock bet put putt Note. If you are discussing these exercises in a tutorial group, you may well already have begun to notice differences in the speech of the members of the group, depending on the accents they speak. Clearly, there is little point, if one has, say, a West Yorkshire or a New York City accent, in transcribing these words as if one were an RP or a GA speaker. What you should do is to try to work out (preferably with the help of a tutor) what the quality of each vowel is, and to adopt an appropriate phonetic symbol for that vowel, which you can then use consistently in your transcriptions. In due course, we will be examining accent variation in more detail. 3 Listen to Track 3.1 at www.wiley.com/go/carrphonetics). Give a phonetic 68 transcription, with as much phonetic detail as possible, for each of the words you hear: elephant throb suspicious unbalanced encourage 69  4 English Phonetics: Vowels (ii) 4.1 RP and GA Long Vowels We noted that the RP/GA vowel in put ([ʊ]) is shorter than that in school; we also said that it is less back and less high than that in school. We will transcribe the vowel in school as [u:], where the ‘ : ’ diacritic denotes vowel length. This is a high back rounded vowel, articulated closer to cardinal vowel 8 than [ʊ]. The RP/GA short vowel [ɪ], as in fit, which we described in chapter 3, is a fairly high, fairly front, unrounded vowel. It differs from the RP/GA vowel in feet, which is longer, more front and higher. We will transcribe this as [i:]; it is a high front unrounded vowel which is closer to cardinal vowel 1 than [ɪ]. It is worth noting that in RP and GA, when words such as to and (s)he are uttered in isolation, they contain, respectively, the vowels [u:] and [i:], so that to is pronounced in the same way as two and too. But ‘function’ words like to and (s)he (which are not nouns, adjectives or verbs) are often uttered without stress, in which case they may be uttered with a schwa ([ə]), or in a shortened form, as in to eat (pronounced either as [təi:t] 70 or as [tui:t]) and she wore (pronounced either [ʃəwɔ] or [ʃiwɔ:]). The shortened form of [i:] is also found in various suffixes, as in the suffix in witty: [wɪti] and in the suffix in quickly: [kʰwɪkli]. It occurs too in the unstressed syllable of words such as pretty: [pʰɹɪti].1 The RP vowel in port and caught is longer than that in pot and cot; it is a low-mid back rounded vowel, articulated closer to cardinal vowel 6 than is the [ɒ] in RP pot and cot. We will transcribe it as [ɔ:]. This is also the vowel which GA speakers utter in words like caught (although the GA vowel is somewhat shorter than the RP vowel). Thus, although both GA and RP speakers distinguish between pairs such as cot and caught, GA has [ɑ] in cot whereas RP speakers have [ɒ]. In GA, words such as horse and port, with an [ɹ] after the vowel, are typically uttered as [hɔɹs] and (see below on /oʊ/ in RP and GA). The RP and GA short vowel [æ], as in ant, is, as we have seen, a fairly low, rather front, unrounded vowel. It differs from that in aunt, which is a low back unrounded vowel, articulated in the region of cardinal vowel 5. The RP/GA vowel in aunt is also longer than the RP/GA vowel in ant. We will transcribe it as [ɑ:]. Thus, whereas RP has a three-way distinction between [ɒ], [ɑ:] and [ɔ:], GA has only a two-way distinction between [ɑ] and [ɔ:]. We will return to this difference between the accents below. RP and GA speakers utter a long vowel in words like bird, heard, dearth, although GA speakers utter an [ɹ] in words such 71 as these, while RP speakers do not. The articulation for this vowel is pretty much the same as that for schwa: it is central on both the high/low and front/back dimensions, and is unrounded. Unlike schwa, it appears in stressed syllables. We will transcribe it as [ɜ:]. We may depict the approximate areas of articulation of these vowels in the vowel space as follows: (1) RP and GA long vowels We will, following Wells (1982; see Suggested Further Reading), refer to [i:] as the FLEECE vowel, [u:] as the GOOSE vowel and [ɜ:] as the NURSE vowel. Wells uses three key words for the [ɔ:] vowel: THOUGHT, FORCE and NORTH; we will see why at a later stage. Similarly, Wells uses three key words for the [ɑ:] vowel: START, BATH and PALM. One of the reasons for this is that in words of the set BATH, GA has [æ], whereas RP has [ɑ:], whereas in words of the sets START and PALM, both GA and RP have [ɑ:]. 4.2 RP and GA Diphthongs 72 In all of the RP and GA vowel sounds we have considered thus far, the articulators remain more or less in the same position throughout the articulation of the vowel. This means that the vowel quality (the acoustic effect created during the articulation of the vowel) remains more or less constant. That kind of vowel is a monophthong. However, there are vowel sounds in which this is not the case. This kind of vowel sound, called a diphthong, entails some kind of change of position of the articulators during its production, and thus a change in the vowel quality produced. A diphthong is a vowel whose quality changes within a syllable. A diphthong is not simply a sequence of two vowels. For instance, in both the RP and the GA pronunciations of the word seeing ([si:ɪŋ]), the vowel [i:] is followed by the vowel [ɪ], but the resulting sequence is not a diphthong, because the [i:] and the [ɪ] are not in the same syllable: seeing has two syllables, the first of which ends in [i:] and the second of which begins with [ɪ]. Let us begin with diphthongs which end in an [ɪ]-like quality. In the RP and GA pronunciations of words such as sigh, rye, bide, etc., the vowel begins with an [a]-like quality (in the region of cardinal vowel 4) and ends in an [ɪ]-like quality. We will transcribe this as [aɪ]. In the RP and GA pronunciations of say, ray, bayed, etc., the vowel begins with an [e]-like quality (in the region of cardinal vowel 2) and ends in an [ɪ]-like quality. We will transcribe this as [eɪ]. In words such as hair, the GA pronunciation is a monophthongal [e], followed by an [ɹ]. In the RP and GA pronunciations of soy, Roy, buoyed, etc., the vowel begins with an [ɔ]-like quality (in the region of 73 cardinal vowel 6) and ends in an [ɪ]-like quality. We will transcribe this as [ɔɪ]. We may represent these diphthongs in the vowel space diagram as follows: (2) RP and GA diphthongs ending in [ɪ] Wells uses the key word FACE for the [eɪ] diphthong, CHOICE for the [ɔɪ] vowel and PRICE for the [aɪ] vowel; we will follow this practice when it proves useful. There are two diphthongs in RP and GA which end in an [ʊ]-like quality. The first of these begins with a low, rather back, unrounded quality. It is found in the RP and GA pronunciations of words such as how, now, loud. We will transcribe this diphthong as [aʊ]. The second of these diphthongs begins, among GA speakers, and among more conservative RP speakers, with an [o]-like quality. It occurs in words such as sew, roe, toad. We will transcribe this as [oʊ]. Among more modern RP speakers, words such as these are pronounced with an [ɔʊ]-like quality.2 Words such as sport, uttered with the long vowel [ɔ:] but no [ɹ] in RP, are uttered with an [o] followed by an [ɹ] in GA. These two diphthongs may be represented within the vowel 74 space as follows: (3) RP and GA diphthongs ending in [ʊ] For these diphthongs, Wells uses the key word MOUTH for the [aʊ] vowel and GOAT for the [oʊ] diphthong. Many RP speakers utter a series of diphthongs which end in an [ə]-like quality, i.e. schwa. Since schwa is pronounced in the centre of the vowel space, these are often called centring diphthongs. The first of these diphthongs begins with an [ɪ]- like quality. It occurs in words such as here and pier. We will transcribe this as [ɪə]. Another diphthong of this sort begins with an [ε]-like quality (in the region of cardinal vowel 3). This occurs in the RP pronunciation of words such as hair and pear. We will transcribe this as [εə]. Some RP speakers pronounce words of this sort with [ε:], a long vowel which is not a diphthong at all, but is more like a long version of a vowel in the region of cardinal vowel 3. A third such diphthong begins with an [ʊ]-like quality, and occurs in words such as tour and pure. We will transcribe this as [ʊə]. Some RP speakers pronounce some of these words 75 (e.g. moor) as a long monophthong in the region of cardinal vowel 6. If you encounter this, you may reasonably transcribe it as [ɔ:]. These three diphthongs may be represented as follows: (4) RP diphthongs ending in [ə] (centring diphthongs) These are called centring diphthongs since schwa is located at the centre of the vowel space. Wells uses the key words NEAR for the [ɪə] vowel, CURE for the [ʊə] vowel, and SQUARE for the [εə] vowel. These diphthongs are all absent in GA. Their presence in RP results from the loss of [ɹ] after vowels in the historical development of RP: the schwa is, as it were, the only remaining trace of the [ɹ] which once existed in the accents from which RP evolved, in the pronunciation of words such as here, hair and pure, which are pronounced [hi:ɹ], [heɹ] and [pʰu:ɹ] in GA. In RP, it is common to find a monophthongal variant. For the SQUARE vowel in contemporary RP, it is common to find a long monophthong: [ε:]. For the CURE vowel, many words of that lexical set are now pronounced by RP speakers with the long monophthong [ɔ:], as in the word sure, pronounced [ʃɔ:]. 76 Notes 1 Accents of English vary with respect to the final vowel in words such as quickly, witty and pretty. Some have an [i]- type vowel, while others have an [ɪ]-type vowel. The former vowel is sometimes said to be ‘more tense’ than the latter, and accents with [i] in these words are sometimes described as having ‘HAPPY tensing’. The latter term is due to Wells (1982; see Suggested Further Reading). 2 Among younger speakers of RP, these diphthongs are frequently uttered with a fronted unrounded second element; we could transcribe these pronunciations as [əı] and [aı], where the second symbol denotes a relatively high central unrounded vowel, as in coke: [kʰəık] and down: [daın]. The effect is to make coke sound rather like cake, and down rather like dine. There are many other such pairs; the principal point about them is that the pairs are still distinct, but less markedly so than in the past. Exercises 1 Transcribe phonetically the vowel which you utter in each of the following words: caught court cot blew put dearth death feel fill Sam (See the note under chapter 3, exercise 2.) 2 For native speakers of English: the vowels in the following words are normally diphthongs in RP. For each word, phonetically transcribe the vowel as you would 77 normally say it, with the appropriate symbol. If it is a diphthong in your speech, describe the initial and final lip and tongue configurations. If it is not a diphthong, say how back/front it is, how high/low and whether it is rounded. fear fair tour late sighed side join toad towed pound (Again, see the note under chapter 3, exercise 2.) 3 Listen to Track 4.1 at www.wiley.com/go/carrphonetics. Transcribe, with as much phonetic detail as possible, each of the words you hear: carted concluded divine divinity serene serenity 78