LING1111 Week 2B Notes: Vowels and Consonants

Overview: Vowels and Consonants

  • Today’s focus:
    • Vowels and consonants function differently
    • Articulatory basis for vowel classification
    • Important vowel features
    • Transcription of English vowels
    • Two main classes of vowels: 2 main classes: monophthongs and diphthongs
    • Vowel variation across dialects

IPA overview and symbol system

  • Consonants (Pulmonic)
    • Places: Bilabial, Labiodental, Dental, Alveolar, Postalveolar, Retroflex, Palatal, Velar, Uvular, Pharyngeal, Glottal
    • Manners: Plosive, Nasal, Trill, Tap or Flap, Fricative, Lateral fricative, Approximant, Lateral approximant
    • Voicing: Symbols to the right represent voiced; to the left, voiceless
    • Some articulations are shaded as impossible on the chart
  • Consonants (Non-pulmonic)
    • Clicks, Voiced implosives, Ejectives
    • Places: Bilabial, Dental/alveolar, (Post)alveolar, Palatal, Velar, Uvular, Alveolar lateral
  • Vowels
    • Places of articulation: Front, Central, Back
    • Qualities: Close, Close-mid, Open-mid, Open
    • Rounding: When symbols appear in pairs, the right symbol is the rounded version
  • Other symbols
    • Voiceless labial-velar fricative; Alveolo-palatal fricatives; Voiced labial-velar approximant; Voiced alveolar lateral flap; Voiced labial-palatal approximant
    • Simultaneous articulations; Voiceless epiglottal fricative
    • Epiglottal fricatives and epiglottal plosives
  • Supra-segmentals
    • Primary stress; Secondary stress
    • Long; Half-long; Extra-short
    • Minor (foot) group; Major (intonation) group
    • Syllable break; Linking (absence of a break)
  • Diacritics
    • Voiceless; Breathy voiced; Creaky voiced; Apical; Aspirated; Linguolabial; Laminal; More rounded; Labialized; Nasalized; Palatalized; Velarized; Lateral release; Retracted; Pharyngealized; Centralized; Velarized or pharyngealized; Mid-centralized; Raised; Syllabic; Lowered; Non-syllabic; Advanced Tongue Root; Rhoticity; Retracted Tongue Root
    • Pharyngealized; Centralized; Tongue root parameters
  • Tones and word accents
    • Level; Contour; Extra; Rising; High; High rising; Mid; Low; Lowrising; Downstep; Upstep; Global rise; Global fall
  • IPA (revised to 2015)
    • Typefaces: Doulos SIL (metatext); Doulos SIL; IPA Kiel; IPA LS Uni (symbols)

Differences between consonants and vowels

  • Consonants
    • Constricted vocal tract
    • Lower amplitude
    • Shorter duration
    • Mark edges of syllables
  • Vowels
    • More open vocal tract
    • Louder amplitude
    • Longer duration
    • Mark the centre of syllables
    • Dialectal/accent differences mainly due to vowel differences

Phonetic description basics

  • Vowels and consonants are distinguished by:
    • Consonants: voicing, place of articulation, manner of articulation
    • Vowels: tongue height, tongue backness, lip rounding

Vowel classification and features

  • Phonetic features for classifying vowels
    • Initiation of airflow: pulmonic
    • Voicing: voiced (default)
    • Cavity: oral or nasal
    • Oral constriction: degree (vowel height); position (vowel backness)
  • Additional vowel features
    • Roundness: vowels can be produced with rounded or unrounded lips (e.g., /iː/ vs /oː/)
    • Length: vowels can be long or short (e.g., /ɐː/ vs /ɐ/)

Vowel space and articulation

  • Vowel space is defined by height and backness
  • The tongue forms an arch when producing vowels
  • Highest Point of the Tongue (HPT) is the apex of the arch

Tongue height and backness (concepts and examples)

  • Height
    • High vowels: high tongue position; do not obstruct air flow
    • Examples: /iː/, /ʉː/, /ʊ/
    • Illustrative words: bead, rude, good
    • Low vowels: HPT is low; mouth is open; jaw lowered
    • Examples: /ɐː/, /ɐ/
    • Illustrative words: card, cud
    • Mid vowels: between high and low
    • Examples: /e/, /ɔ/
    • Illustrative words: pet, pot
  • Backness
    • Front vowels: tongue near the hard palate
    • Examples: /iː, ɪ, e/
    • Illustrative words: bead, bid, bed
    • Back vowels: tongue toward the velar/pharyngeal region
    • Examples: /ʊ, oː, ɔ/
    • Illustrative words: good, board, pod
    • Central vowels: between front and back
    • Examples: /ə, ɜː, ɐː/
    • Illustrative words: above, bird, guard

IPA vowel chart and layout

  • The chart is organized by height (high to open) and backness (front to back)
  • Symbols shown under each category indicate typical vowels used in English varieties

Vowel dispersion principle

  • Languages tend to space vowels as far apart as possible in the vowel space for intelligibility
  • When accents change, vowels often remain dispersed to preserve intelligibility

Australian English vowel system (summaries)

  • Australian English Vowel Chart (two representations):
    • MD (Mitchell, 1946; Mitchell & Delbridge, 1965): an older description of Aus English; based on British English terminology
    • HCE (Harrington, Cox, & Evans, 1997): a more accurate representation of how Aus English is produced
    • In this unit, use HCE for phonemic (broad) transcription (subset of IPA)
  • The chart shows distinct vowel heights and backness for Aus English; examples include front-close, front-mid, back-close, etc.

Roundness in vowels

  • In most English accents, back vowels and certain high vowels are produced with rounded lips (e.g., /ʉː, ʊ, ɔ, oː/)
  • Many languages prefer rounded back vowels and unrounded front vowels
  • Exceptions exist (e.g., French front rounded vowels [y]; Japanese back unrounded vowels [ɯ])

Vowel length in English

  • Long vowels: /iː, ʉː, ɜː, oː, ɐː, eː/
  • Short vowels: /ɪ, ʊ, e, ɔ, æ, ɐ/
  • English short vowels do not occur in open syllables (i.e., syllables ending in a vowel) except for schwa in some contexts
  • Open syllable example notes: [mæ] (not a full open syllable in many dialects), [kʊ] (not open), [pɪ] (not open)
  • The schwa exception arises frequently in unstressed positions

Schwa (ə)

  • The most common vowel in English
  • Typically found in function words in connected speech: for, the, but, should, can, etc.
  • Characteristics:
    • Typically very short and not very loud
    • Occurs in the large majority of English polysyllabic words
    • Examples with phonetic transcription: photographer /fəˈtɔɡrəfə/; consistent /kənˈsɪstənt/; abominable /əˈbɒmənəbəl/
  • Visual cue: a mid-central vowel with a very neutral quality

Schwa meme and perception

  • Visuals in the slides emphasize schwa as the common, unstressed vowel (humor/reference point)
  • Example sentence used in practice: “What are you doing later today?” with a Schwa-rich transcription
  • Transcription example: /wɔtfǝdu:ǝnlæıtətǝdæı/

Vowel classes: static vs dynamic

  • Static vowels: monophthongs (e.g., /ɐː/ as in “are”)
  • Dynamic vowels: diphthongs (e.g., /ɑe/ as in “eye”)

Describing diphthongs

  • Dipthongs described by reference to the HPT at the beginning and end of the diphthongal glide (onset/nucleus + glide)
  • They are transcribed using two vowel symbols to represent a single vowel sound
  • Example: /æɪ/ as in “day”; /æɔ/ as in “how”
  • Phrase example: “no highway cowboys” -> any same-diphthong sequence represented as a sequence of two vowels
  • Important to remember: the two symbols represent one vowel sound with a glide

Rising and falling diphthongs

  • Rising diphthongs: the end of the glide has a higher tongue position than the beginning
    • Front rising: glides move up and to the front (e.g., /æɪ/ bay, /ɑe/ by, /oɪ/ boy, /əʉ/ beau)
    • Back rising: glides move up and to the back (e.g., /æɔ/ how)
  • Falling diphthongs: the end of the glide is lower than the start (e.g., /ɪə/ hear; sometimes /eː/ hair is realized as [eə] for some speakers)

Transcription practice (examples and transcriptions)

  • cat → /kæt/
  • kite → /kɑet/
  • thirst → /θɜːst/
  • report → /ɹəpoːt/
  • main → /mæɪn/
  • shoe → /ʃʉː/
  • today → /tədæɪ/
  • tomorrow → /təmɔɹəʉ/

Online resources and fonts

  • IPA transcription tools: https://r12a.github.io/pickers/ipa/
  • Font installation: Charis SIL font (recommended for IPA rendering)

Lexical sets and phonological reference (British English framework)

  • Lexical sets (alphabetical names): KIT, DRESS, FLEECE, GOOSE, FOOT, NURSE, TRAP, LOT, STRUT, THOUGHT
  • Associated typical vowels (historical MD mapping):
    • KIT → ɪ
    • DRESS → e
    • FLEECE → iː
    • GOOSE → uː
    • FOOT → ʊ
    • NURSE → ɜː
    • TRAP → æ
    • LOT → ɔ (or ɒ in some analyses)
    • STRUT → ʌ
    • THOUGHT → ɔː
  • Additional sets: GOAT, FACE, NEAR, SQUARE, MOUTH, PRICE
    • MD values and HCE (Harrington, Cox, Evans) representations differ slightly; in this unit, use HCE for phonemic (broad) transcription
  • In short: MD provides traditional British English mapping; HCE offers a more phonetically accurate representation of Australian English production

Australian English vowel chart (summary)

  • Distinctive front-centre-back vowel qualities; differences between MD and HCE representations
  • Practical approach in this unit: use HCE for phonemic transcription

Roundness, length, and practical vowels in Aus English

  • Roundness: back vowels tend to be rounded; front vowels tend to be unrounded; exceptions exist across languages (e.g., French front rounded vowels, Japanese back unrounded vowels)
  • Length distinctions: short vs long vowels; specific long vowels include /iː, ʉː, ɜː, oː, ɐː, eː/; short vowels include /ɪ, ʊ, e, ɔ, æ, ɐ/
  • Open syllables and schwa exception: English short vowels typically do not occur in open syllables; schwa may occur in some open syllables or contexts

Schwa details and examples

  • Schwa is the most common English vowel, often unstressed
  • Found in function words and many polysyllabic words
  • Examples in transcriptions:
    • photographer → /fəˈtɔɡrəfə/
    • consistent → /kənˈsɪstənt/
    • abominable → /əˈbɒmənəbəl/

Transcription exercise: extended practice

  • What are you doing later today? → /wɔtfǝdu:ǝnlæıtətǝdæı/

Transcription practice set (words and target transcriptions)

  • cat → /kæt/
  • kite → /kɑet/
  • thirst → /θɜːst/
  • report → /ɹəpoːt/
  • main → /mæɪn/
  • shoe → /ʃʉː/
  • today → /tədæɪ/
  • tomorrow → /təmɔɹəʉ/

Lexical sets and phoneme usage (summary)

  • MD vs HCE usage in Aus English
  • The sets provide a framework to map phoneme-level contrasts to a broader inventory of vowels used in everyday speech
  • For phonemic (broad) transcription in this unit, prefer HCE mappings

Next topic hint

  • PHONOLOGY: Phonemes & Allophones (to be covered in upcoming material; analogy with superheroes Superman & Clark Kent)

Notes on sources and references

  • Slides compiled by Michael Proctor and Anita Szakay; content adapted for weekly topic Week 2B with Dr. Joshua Penney
  • Visuals include standard IPA charts and Australian English vowel treatments; fonts suggested for accurate IPA rendering (e.g., Charis SIL)