Cardinal Vowels September 29, 2010

The Master Plan 1.Take care of some narrow transcription leftovers 2.Cardinal Vowels 3.Note: I am altering the deal. On Friday, we will go over the remainder of the narrow transcription exercises (#7-16). For Monday, complete Course in Phonetics Chapter 2, Exercise I. (American or British speaker; your call!) Also for Monday, complete Course in Phonetics exercises Chapter 1: B, D, E. (The exercises due on Monday will be graded.)

Production Exercise #1 Say your name backwards.

Canadian Raising (Canadian) Jon(American) Steve “house” “howl” “bike” “bile” For fun: switch Jon’s vowels in “bike” and “bile” Also compare: (Canadian) Aaron: (American) Steve: And, lastly, (Canadian?) Amber:

More Voicing Allophony Consonants at the ends of words are sometimes devoiced. Voicelessness is denoted with the [ ] diacritic. ‘lose’‘peas’ Also: ‘languages’ example from homework #1. You can sometimes get contrasts in English like: ‘peace’‘peas’ /l/, /j/, /w/ and can be (partially) voiceless in English when they follow a voiceless consonant: ‘play’

Front and Back Velars /k/ and /g/ become fronted when preceding front vowels  the diacritic for “fronter” is  the diacritic for “backer” is Examples: ‘coo’ ‘key’ These diacritics may apply to vowels, as well. Ex: ‘spoons’

Nasalization  Vowels often become nasalized before nasal consonants.  The diacritic for nasalization is: Examples: ‘can’vs. ‘cat’ ‘Ben’vs.‘bed’ Before other consonants, /n/ can drop out completely…  and leave the nasalization behind:  ‘can’t’vs. ‘cat’  ‘Winters’

Dimension 7: Laterality Lateral approximant: Obstruction of the airstream at a point along the center of the oral tract With incomplete closure between one or both sides of the tongue and the roof of the mouth. alveolar lateral:[l]“clear l” velarized alveolar lateral:“dark l” velarized = back of tongue is raised towards velum Note: consonants which are not lateral are “central”. Check out “oil” video

/l/ options Dialectologically, /l/ is the most interesting consonant in English. Dialect Type A: “clear” /l/ syllable-initially: ‘leaf’ “dark” /l/ syllable finally: ‘feel’ Dialect Type B: “clear” /l/ before front vowels: ‘leak’ “dark” /l/ everywhere else: ‘lock’ Others have “dark” /l/ pretty much everywhere. (and maybe even lose the alveolar closure!)

Consonant Dimensions: Summary [t][j] 1.Airstream Mechanismpulmonic egressivep.e. 2.Phonation Typevoicelessvoiced 3.Place of Articulationalveolarpalatal 4.Aperturestopapprox. 5.Retroflexionnon-retroflexnon-retro 6.Nasalityoraloral 7.Lateralitycentralcentral

Manner of Articulation Phoneticians usually combine dimensions 4-7 under the rubric of manner of articulation. Example manners of articulation: [t] = (oral) stop [n] = nasal stop [v] = fricative [w] = approximant [l] = lateral approximant = retroflex approximant = affricate

Notes Consonant sounds are generally assumed to be: pulmonic egressive oral central …unless stated otherwise Big picture thought: Through combinatorics, language makes a large number of distinctions out of a minimal number of articulatory gestures.

English Consonant Chart

Vowel Dimensions Vowel articulations can be characterized along four dimensions: 1.Height (of tongue body) high, mid, low 2.Front-back (of tongue body) front, central, back 3.Roundedness (of lips) rounded vs. unrounded 4.“Tenseness” tense/lax

The Vowel Space

Other Vowel Features Rounding: are pronounced with rounded lips the other English vowels are not “Tenseness” a “tense” vowel is closer to the edge of the vowel space a “lax” vowel is closer to the center Ex: [i] is tense, is not. Tense/lax distinctions: found predominately in Germanic languages are very hard for non-native speakers of English to hear

Tense vs. Lax There are five lax vowels in English. TenseLax heedhid hayedhead who’dhood hodhud had The lax vowels cannot appear at the end of a syllable. They also often have a offglide. Lastly: they are shorter than their tense counterparts.

The Cardinal Vowels A set of 8 reference vowels Brainchild of English Phonetician Daniel Jones ( ) “Cardinal Vowels can only be learnt from a teacher who knows how to make them or from a gramophone record or tape record.”

Lineage Henry Sweet taught phonetics to Daniel Jones. Daniel Jones taught David Abercrombie. David Abercrombie taught Peter Ladefoged. Peter Ladefoged taught Sarah Dart. Sarah Dart taught me. I am teaching you.

The Cardinal Vowels So let’s learn about the Cardinal Vowels. Two “anchor” vowels: [i] - Cardinal Vowel 1 - highest, frontest vowel possible - Cardinal Vowel 5 - lowest, backest vowel possible Remaining vowels are spaced at equal intervals of frontness and height between the anchor vowels. Note: [u] - Cardinal Vowel 8 - may serve as a third anchor as the highest, backest, roundest vowel possible

Cardinal Vowel Diagram o

Secondary Cardinal Vowels

Origins? Why are the primary Cardinal Vowels primary and not secondary? Possible influence of late 19th/early 20th century French vowel system: 1. [i]lit[li]‘bed’ 2. [e]les[le]‘the’ 3. lait‘milk’ 4. [a]la[la]‘the’5.lache‘loose’ 6.loque‘rag’ 7. [o]lot[lo]‘lot, share’ 8. [u]loup[lu]‘wolf’ French phonetician Paul Passy was President of the IPA when it adopted the Cardinal Vowel system for vowel classification.

Caveats and Addenda The Cardinal Vowels are not the vowels of any language; they are reference vowels. There were also two “central” Cardinal Vowels: and 17 - “barred i” 18 - “barred u” Central vowels only appear in unstressed syllables in English. ‘about’ ‘roses’ Also: New Zealand and Scottish English

Parting Shots The Cardinal Vowels were based on an articulatory- based, three-dimensional characterization of vowels: 1.Height (high, mid, low) 2.Front/central/backness 3.Roundedness Ex: [i] is a high, front, unrounded vowel is a low-mid, back, rounded vowel With the invention of the sound spectrograph in World War II… an acoustic/auditory understanding of vowel distinctions superseded the old articulatory characterization.