LG204 background.pdf
LG204 background.pdf
LG204 background.pdf
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<strong>LG204</strong>-5-FY ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY Background<br />
pinging on the side of the glasses. The notes will be produced by the air resonating in<br />
the top of the glass and because the area of air in the glasses varies, so different notes<br />
can be produced. We can alter the shape of our oral cavity by using the tongue which<br />
can be raised, lowered (both from a neutral position – roughly the position of the<br />
vowel []) or can be retracted. In addition, a further dimension of lip-rounding can be<br />
added.<br />
Let’s start by going through the set of English vowels in relation to the relevant<br />
vowels in the set of cardinal vowels. The cardinal vowels are a set of reference<br />
points, idealised vowels which don’t all occur in any language. When we’ve located<br />
these reference points, we can plot in the English vowels. The English vowels show<br />
great variability across different accents, much more than do consonants. I shall stick<br />
to a fairly neutral set of Southern British vowels in the main, but may well make<br />
reference to other accents if it seems appropriate.<br />
There are 2 sets of cardinal vowels – primary and secondary – each containing 8.<br />
English has rough equivalents to all the primary set and to one or possibly two of the<br />
secondary set. In addition, there are a number of vowels which don’t figure even<br />
approximately in either set, and several diphthongs.<br />
The cardinal vowels were the brainchild of phonetician Daniel Jones. Two of them (1<br />
and 5) have articulatory descriptions, the others are located in terms of their acoustic<br />
properties. They are equidistant from each other acoustically. Cardinal 1 requires the<br />
tongue to be placed as high in the oral cavity as it can be without creating frication.<br />
You may find that the sides of the tongue actually touch the back teeth but the air can<br />
still flow freely through the gap in the centre. This vowel is [i]. Cardinal 5 is formed<br />
by lowering the back part of the tongue to such an extent that the mouth is wide open.<br />
This is the vowel the doctor tells you to say in order to look down your throat. The<br />
symbol is []. The other two corners of the vowel trapezium are 4 – a low front<br />
vowel [] (note that this is not the vowel in this position in the IPA chart, where the<br />
symbol [a] is used) and 8 – a high back vowel [u], which involves a considerable<br />
amount of lip-rounding. The other four primary cardinals are 2, a slightly larger<br />
cavity than [i], for which the symbol is [e], as in the French word bée, which, as you<br />
will notice, is very different from the nearest English equivalent in bay. Cardinal 3<br />
[] is closer to the French vowel in bête than that in the English word bet. The<br />
symbol for cardinal 6 is []. This is the symbol we would normally use for the vowel<br />
in caught. However, the cardinal is better exemplified by the sound in the French<br />
word côte (not to be confused with cot). Cardinal 7 is represented by [o], but is not<br />
the same as in bow, it’s more like the French beau. Both 6 and 7 involve lip<br />
rounding. Scottish English has vowels which are closer to the cardinals than does<br />
English English.<br />
The secondary cardinals reverse the lip settings of the primary set. All the front<br />
vowels and the low back [] involve spread or neutral lips, whilst the other back<br />
vowels involve lip rounding to some degree. Therefore the secondary set includes<br />
front rounded and back unrounded vowels. The two examples of secondary cardinals<br />
which can be found in English are 13 (rounded []) and 14 (unrounded []). It goes<br />
without saying that the English vowels are not exactly the same as the cardinal set.<br />
Cardinal 13 is represented by the symbol [] and 14 by the symbol [].<br />
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