As we stated earlier, vowels are produced with a relatively open vocal tract. They can therefore become the nucleus of a syllable by virtue of being able to carry stress. We will now look at the properties for describing the articulation of vowels.

Vowels are produced by changing the shape of the space through which the air moves on its way from the lungs to the outside. Since there is little constriction, vowels are described by different properties than consonants. They can be described by making use of the following four properties: tongue height, tongue advancement, lip rounding, and tenseness of articulators. All four properties are demonstrated on the companion tape in sample 17.

Tongue Height, as the name says, refers to the position of the tongue inside the mouth. It might be helpful to understand tongue position if you think of the mouth as a three-dimensional space. In this space, we move the tongue around to form different vowels. For tongue height, we make a three-way distinction between high, mid and low depending on the "up- or downness" of the tongue in the 3D space of the mouth. The most obvious example for demonstrating tongue height is a visit to the doctor when we have a sore throat. When the doctor wants to see the back of your throat she asks us to make the [a] sound, not the [i] sound. The reason is simple. When you make an [a], your tongue is low, and the doctor can look past it. When you make an [i], your tongue is high, and your throat is not visible. Try this out for yourself in front of a mirror (but watch that no one else is present - students have reported getting funny looks when they practiced phonetics while in the company of others). You can also pronounce the words in the book. The book describes an exercise using  [i, 35, 36] in the words seat, set, sat to demonstrate the tongue positions high, mid, low. You should be able to see or feel your jaw drop lower successively with each word.

To practice tongue height distinctions, we can conduct another exercise similar to the ones we conducted for consonants. Make up a sentence with short words, in which each word contains one of the high, mid, and low vowels in this order. For example, a sentence might be Beat [i] (high) Fred [35] (mid) bad [36] (low)! (for example, in chess). After each word, write the phonetic symbol (or number) for the sound contained in the word as I did in the example. Post your sentence in your group folder (Phonetics 1-5) in FirstClass, check each others' examples, and discuss issues.

Tongue Advancement addresses position of the tongue in terms of front and back in the three-dimensional space inside the mouth. We have just described up-down movement (tongue height). Now we are looking at movement in the front-back dimension. The three distinctions are front, central, and back. I can tell the difference between front and back vowels the best if I say the vowels (and only the vowels ) in beat [i] and boot [u] in fast succession. [i] is front and [u] is back. Saying them fast several times in a row makes me aware of how my tongue moves from front to back and from back to front, and so on. Give it a try, and see if you can feel the front-back movement.

To practice tongue advancement, let's also conduct an exercise. Make up a sentence with short words, in which each word contains one of the front, central, and back vowels in this order. For example, a sentence might be See [35] (front) Chuck's [42] (central) Ford [40] (back)? After each word, write the phonetic symbol (or number) for the sound contained in the word as I did in the example. Post your sentence in your FirstClass group folders (Phonetics 1-5), check each others' sentences, and discuss issues.

The next property for describing vowels is Lip Rounding. When we produce rounded vowels, we pucker our lips, almost as if we are going to whistle (not quite as much as for whistling). The two distinctions here are rounded and unrounded. You should be able to feel the rounding-unrounding movement again by making round-nonround vowels quickly in a row. Try saying the words two (rounded) tees (unrounded) five times in a row. Can you tell?

To practice lip rounding, again let's conduct an exercise. Make up a sentence with short words, in which each word alternately contains rounded and unrounded vowels. For example, a sentence might be Tour [u] these [i] two [u] streets [i]. After each word, write the phonetic symbol (or number for it) contained in the word as I did in the example. Post your sentence in your FirstClass group folder (Phonetics 1-5), check each other's sentences, and discuss issues.

Finally, vowels are described using the property of Tenseness, which relates to the amount of effort required for the articulation of a vowel. Tense vowels require greater effort to produce than lax vowels. This effort can go towards positioning of any of the articulators, such as the tongue or the lips. There are two distinctions to consider here: tense and lax. Remember how we viewed the mouth as a three-dimensional space? Tense vowels are located closer to the outside edges of this space than lax vowels. This is true both for the height and advancement dimension. So tense [i] in beat is higher and more front than lax [I] in bit; tense [u] in food is higher and more back than lax [U] in foot. When you pronounce a pair of tense and lax vowels, such as [i, I], in fast succession several times, can you tell how your tongue strains to reach [i] and relaxes for the [I]?

To practice tenseness, let's conduct yet another exercise. Make up a sentence with short words, in which each word alternately contains tense and lax vowels. For example, a sentence might be He [i] (tense) did [I] (lax) eat [i] (tense) the [43] (lax) cake [e] (tense). After each word, write the phonetic symbol (or number) for the sound contained in the word as I did in the example. Post your sentence in your FirstClass group folder (Phonetics 1-5), check each other's examples, and discuss issues.

As with consonants earlier, we need to use a combination of all  properties when we describe vowels. To fully describe the vowels in my sample sentence He did eat the cake one needs to add three more properties to tenseness: tongue height, tongue advancement, and lip rounding respectively. Again, it is not important that you memorize all the distinctions within each property. I'd rather you know where and what your resources are. To finish describing these vowels, we can consult the schematic of the mouth in Figure 1 on page 43. Across the top you will find the dimension of tongue advancement. Down the left side are the labels for tongue height. Vowels with lip rounding are shown inside the dashed area. And tense vowels are outside the shaded, grey area. The sound [i], found in the top left corner of Figure 1, must be described as high, front, unrounded, and tense; [I] is high, front, unrounded, and lax; schwa, [43], is mid, central, unrounded, and lax; and [e] is mid, front, unrounded, and tense. Why don't you take the example Get Chuck's Ford and determine the four-way descriptions for each of the three vowels. Go to the Center and post, check, and discuss your consonant descriptions in your group folder (Phonetics 1-5).

Besides simple vowels, English has 3 diphthongs or two-sound vowels; because of their two-sound property, diphthongs are represented by two symbols of the IPA. The second parts of diphthongs are always glides, i.e., they are consonants. Figure 2 in the book demonstrates the movement of the tongue when we produce the three English diphthongs [ay, aw, 46]. This information may help you understand the rule of monophthongization that some of you were struggling with in the AAVE homework. This rule means that the glides in these three diphthongs are removed, leaving the vowel part of the diphthong intact and converting it into a monophthong (or single sound).  This concludes our discussion of phonetics.

For your homework, I would like you to practice recognizing phonetic symbols. Therefore, I am giving you a short dialog written in IPA symbols. Decipher the symbols and write the text using the Roman alphabet we usually employ when writing in English. Note: some of the symbols represent informal pronunciation; this should be reflected in your regular English version)! Also, you need to remember back to the part of the course in which we discussed geographic dialects. The homework text only makes sense if you recognize the dialectal variation in one word contained in the text. To get to the homework page, please click here. The page is actually a digital photo of a sheet of paper and may take a while to download depending on the speed of your internet connection.

For the other part of your homework listed in Lesson 8.0, please click here. You will find further instructions on your final paper on this web page.

Updated last: 3/9/01          © Andreas Schramm and Hamline University