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<strong>LG204</strong>-5-FY ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY Background We can now start to plot in the English set against these cardinal vowels. I shall start with the four corners of the chart and then go on to fill in the sides. Finally, we can go into uncharted territory and consider the vowels that are more centralised than those in the cardinal sets. The vowel we represent by the symbol [i] in English is somewhat lower than the cardinal, say [i]. Compare the sound in sea with the French si (or indeed the Scottish vowel, which is close to the French one). In most dialects of Southern British English (SBE), the equivalent to cardinal 4, is almost exactly that. Traditionally, the ash symbol [] was used for the vowel in hat and, if you examine the IPA chart, you’ll find that it’s a somewhat raised vowel relative to cardinal 4 (for which they use [a]). True cardinal 4 was found in Northern accents. However, the raised pronunciation of [] sounds very old-fashioned these days and most speakers use 4. The SBE equivalent of cardinal 5 – [] as in heart isn’t quite so far back as 5, it’s a little more centralised []. The truly back vowel is, however, found in South African English. Cardinal 8 [u] is slightly lowered in SBE and other similar dialects, including GA, and is centralised somewhat to [] in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Cardinal 2 [e] exists in its pure form in Scottish and close to this, although slightly lower, in Yorkshire. It’s diphthongised in SBE, as we shall see in due course. Cardinal 3 [] occurs in words like let in Yorkshire and Scotland but is raised slightly in SBE, keeping a distance from [] and [e]. Cardinal 7 [o] is roughly this in Scotland and a bit lower (almost a raised []) but still a monophthong in Yorkshire. Again in SBE it is diphthongised (see later). Cardinal 6 [] is raised both in both SBE and Scots. It’s more rounded and higher in SBE – similar to the Spanish vowel in loco but with more rounding and tenser. The nearest English equivalent to cardinal 13 [] is slightly raised. The vowel in hit [] doesn’t have an equivalent in the cardinal set. This vowel is shorter and laxer than [i]. The tenseness of [i] tends to increase the tongue height and push the vowel further to the front. Thus, [] is lower and more retracted than its counterpart. In Scots it’s centralised to [], as indeed it is in NZ English. At the back the vowel [u] has a partner [] which shares the same relationship with it as [] to [i]. That is to say that it’s more centralised and a bit lower, as well as being lax. It’s even more centralised in Scotland and Northern Ireland (barred [] – I don’t have the symbol for this). The English equivalent to cardinal 14 [] is more central in GA, Irish and Scots []. In SBE the vowel in hut is considerably further forward []. This vowel doesn’t occur at all in northern dialects of English where there is no contrast between could and cud both being pronounced with []. 14
<strong>LG204</strong>-5-FY ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY Background A central vowel, somewhat higher and tenser than [] is []. This is the vowel heard in bird, heard, word, absurd, herd etc. in non-rhotic dialects. In rhotic dialects like GA and south-western English this sound is a syllabic [] which may also be transcribed as [] or []. These last two symbols reflect the fact that the quality of this sound is similar to the non-rhotic version but with added rhoticity. This sound doesn’t occur in Scots. The schwa [] isn’t phonemic in any dialect of English. It’s the archetypal reduced vowel and can substitute for most other vowels: e.g. atom [tm] vs. atomic [tmk] telephone [tlfon] vs. telephony [tlfni]. The English pure vowels are shown below: [i] bead [] bid [] bed [] bad [] bard [] bod [] board [u] brood [] hood [] bird [] bud In addition English has 5 falling diphthongs: [e] bay [o] bow [a] buy [a] bough [] boy These can be divided into homogeneous and heterogeneous diphthongs. Homogeneous diphthongs involve only a small tongue movement. The first of these is [e]. This starts at a lower point than cardinal 2 (see the Yorkshire vowel above). The other possible symbol for this diphthong is [ej], reflecting the fact that length is carried by the [e] element and the rest is an offglide. The other one is [o], which, again, starts a bit lower than cardinal 7 and drifts up to []. This can also be represented as [ow]. It’s claimed in some accounts that in RP English the start of this diphthong is unrounded at about [] or [] (see Gimson). This pronunciation sounds rather old-fashioned these days. The other three mentioned above are heterogeneous, as in buy, bough and boy. The first of these starts from a low central [a] and rises up to [] (or [j]), giving us [a], whilst the second starts at the same point but rises to the other side at [] (or [w]) yielding [a]. The diphthong in boy is the only one truly to cross the vowel space from the back rounded [] to the front unrounded [] (or [j]). Notice that all the diphthongs listed are what are known as ‘falling diphthongs’, that is they fall in sonority from the first to the second element (although they are articulated by raising the tongue in the mouth). The reverse order of sonority in a pair of vowels would not result (in English) in a diphthong. There are two homogeneous diphthongs [e] and [o], so called because the two parts of the diphthong remain in the same area of the vowel space, and three heterogeneous diphthongs [a], [a] and [], which are the result of the crossing of the vowel space. It could also be suggested that the sequence [ju] is a diphthong. This will be considered in some detail later. 15
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