LG204 background.pdf

LG204-5-FY ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY Background
In addition to the above vowels, of course, there is one on the chart which is not listed
as phonemic. This is schwa []. The reason it isn’t listed is that it isn’t phonemic.
More on schwa later in the course.
Listing the vowels in the way we have appears to indicate that the pure vowels behave
in some sense as a set as do the diphthongs. However, notice that some of the pure
vowels will occur minimally paired with the diphthongs in final open syllables
whereas others may not.
Thus:
3.
[e] bay [a] buy [a] bough [o] bow [] boy
[i] bee [u] boo [] bar [] bur [] bore
4.
[] *b [] *b [] *b
[] *b [] *b [] *b
Notice from the above charts that the vowels are now grouped, not as pure and
complex, but as long (3) and short (4). Long vowels may occur freely in open final
syllables or in open monosyllables whereas short ones may not. Another way of
distinguishing between the set of ‘long’ vowels and the set of ‘short’ ones is by
describing the former as ‘tense’ and the latter as ‘lax’. These two labels correlate
roughly with the feature [±ATR] although this correlation is problematic, because
whilst for non-low vowels tenseness roughly corresponds to advanced tongue root,
this is not true of low vowels. It is generally acknowledged that [] is [+ATR] and
[] is [−ATR], the reverse of their settings for tenseness.
(Non-rhotic) English also has what are known as ‘centring diphthongs’. Like the
other English diphthongs, these diphthongs have the syllabic peak as the first element,
however, in spite of the fact that the ‘offglide’ schwa may be more sonorous than the
syllabic peak. ([] as in hear has a sonority profile of 45). In addition of these
centring diphthongs there are also 2 triphthongs. All of these are listed below:
[] hear *[] dare †[] poor †[] door **[a] hire
[a] higher [a] hour
* This diphthong has tended to be monophthongised as [:] (dare = [d:])
† Both the diphthongs [] and [] are very rarely heard, and the contrast between
poor (formerly [p]), pour (formerly [p]) and paw has been neutralised as [p].
** For many speakers this diphthong does not exist and hire and higher are
homophones [ha].
We shall be discussing this form of diphthong in the context of rime structure
constraints and moraic structure later in the course.
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