Those speech sounds made with open, unrestricted vocal tracts, in contrast to consonants.
2
votes
0answers
38 views
How common is phonemic vowel length across languages?
Including different kinds of length distinctions, such as in stressed syllables only, or stressed and unstressed, etc.
6
votes
2answers
206 views
Are there any languages with only front vowels?
I'm curious why every language I've heard of has back or central vowels. Are there any languages that exclusively uses front vowels (say the phonemes /a/, /e/, /i/, /y/)? I want to know this more or ...
4
votes
2answers
158 views
What languages have a three-way vowel distinction with backness?
I am learning a Tigrinya for the last couple of months, and find it difficult to grasp and produce the central vowels of the language (see picture). I want to know if there are other languages which ...
4
votes
3answers
183 views
Why are consonants distinguished differently than vowels?
Consonants are distinguished normally by features like place of articulation, manner of articulation, voiced/voiceless, etc. while vowels are usually distingusihed by stuff like tongue's position and ...
3
votes
1answer
96 views
Is there any symbol to represent an unknown vowel?
Is there any symbol to represent a vowel?
Is there any symbol to represent a constant?
For example "bog", "bat" and "bag" can be represented by b[v][c] or b✦✧.
Udate:
In a paper I want to describe ...
4
votes
1answer
185 views
How can nasalized vowels in English be explained?
. . .Auntie *Ma*rge's present, see, it's here under. . . [audio source]
In the audio above, [mɑː] sounds like this:
[..m..]
[......ɑː.....]
---- (time) ---->
This sounds close to ...
2
votes
1answer
48 views
Is there an agreed-upon feature set that defines segments as vowels?
I have a feeling the answer is no, and that there are complications involved, but I was considering this:
[-consonantal, +syllabic]
This would first remove all consonants, leaving e, u, i, and ...
5
votes
1answer
140 views
What rule governs the vowel alternations in Latin caput/capit-/-cep(t)-/-cipit-/-ciput?
In different forms, the Latin root caput "head" appears with different vowels:
a-u: caput (nominative singular);
a-i: capitis (genitive singular), capitī (dative singular), capita (nominative ...
7
votes
3answers
142 views
Vowel harmony in Spanish?
Some irregular Spanish verbs with infinite in "-ir" seem to have an interesting pattern in their conjugation:
For some verbs with "o" as last vowel in the infinite stem (e.g. dormir, morir), the form ...
4
votes
0answers
172 views
What is the most common vowel?
Of all the languages for which there is sufficient data, including extinct languages, which vocalic speech sound, or phone, as represented by the IPA, has been used by more languages, with more ...
4
votes
3answers
609 views
How to distinguish Korean “ㅔ” /e/ and “ㅐ” /ɛ/?
I've always had trouble with the distinction between the "e"-like vowels in European languages: /e/ vs /ɛ/. But pronouncing them the same has never caused me any problems.
In fact I don't even know ...
3
votes
3answers
758 views
Difference between production of vowels, diphthongs and semi-vowels
I am studying speech recognition by Lawrence Rabiner's book. I am unable to find a proper and easy to understand answer for the following question :
Difference between production of vowels, ...
4
votes
1answer
140 views
Are there languages without vowel reduction?
Are there languages without vowel reduction? That is, are there languages in which the vowels in certain syllables are not centralized and/or "de-rounded" and/or shortened because of speaking rate, ...
3
votes
1answer
104 views
How usual is it for languages to have multiple contrasting “neutral” vowels?
First of all, I used scare quotes on "neutral" because I can't think of a better word. I was going to say "central vowels" but that would cover some "a"-like vowels whereas I am only thinking of ...
4
votes
2answers
419 views
How can the IPA vowels be memorized?
Memorizing IPA consonants is trivially easy; each symbol represents one sound, and that sound can be described with a variety of parameters about manner of articulation, etc.
The IPA vowels, however, ...
6
votes
2answers
164 views
What do the “less-than” and “greater-than” signs mean when used as IPA vowel diacritics?
I was recently reading an academic paper on Amdo Tibetan phonetics and the author uses IPA vowel diacritics that look like "less-than" and "greater-than" signs.
Here is a picture so you know what I'm ...
7
votes
1answer
293 views
Is there a language with but one vowel sound?
Is there a language known to have no minimal pairs separating vowels, or in which only one vowel exists phonemically in the language, or whose speakers don't detect a difference between any two vowels ...
5
votes
1answer
117 views
How do linguists determine at which point the Great Vowel Shift was complete?
The chart below shows a chain of sound changes that happened to the English language, from 1400 onwards. Although the chart was intended to describe the Great Vowel Shift, it is not accurate*, since ...
4
votes
1answer
205 views
Does the syllable/word ratio in a language determine the number of vowel phonemes it has?
I've recently stumbled on this site dedicated to teaching English as a second language to Portuguese speakers. Right at the beginning, while making a comparison among English and Portuguese ...
4
votes
1answer
124 views
Literature on “broken vowels”
I am looking for any recent studies dealing substantially with "broken vowels,"
or vocoid elements which have a noticeably nonstable formant trajectory, yet for which there are no good phonological ...
1
vote
1answer
189 views
Systematic means of transcribing words to vowel/consontant patterns
Looking for a systematic online step-by-step process to codify English words into vowel/consontant patterns (CVC, CVCe, CVVC, etc.) and the correct sound (long-vowel, short-vowel, blend, diagraph, ...
6
votes
4answers
324 views
Why in English words, the [o] is followed by [ʊ]?
The close-mid back rounded vowel is, according to Wikipedia, "usually diphthongized to [oʊ]".
Examples: row, also.
In fact, in Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary I didn't see o standing ...
7
votes
3answers
368 views
Which languages other than Chinese have apical vowels?
Which languages other than some Chinese languages have apical vowels? The "apical vowels" are the i in zi, ci, si (in IPA: z̩ (also seen as ɿ)) and ʐ̩ (also seen as ʅ). They are basically buzzed ...
7
votes
4answers
322 views
In Turkish, how exactly does “ğ” affect the vowel it follows?
In Standard Turkish, "ğ" is explained as having no sound of its own but instead lengthens the previous vowel.
So would "aa" and "ağ" sound alike? What about "â" and "ağa"? Can there sometimes be ...
23
votes
6answers
837 views
How do linguists place the vowels of a language precisely on the vowel trapezoid?
Since vowels in human speech are a continuous spectrum rather than a discrete set, many descriptions of languages I’ve seen — not only on Wikipedia — place the vowels of a language as dots in a ...
4
votes
4answers
156 views
Distinction of vowels depends on native language
I have seen a computer experiment at a science museum that asked the user to distinguish very similar vowels by sound explaining that visitors with different native language can distinguish different ...
