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This question is similar to How many different vowels are there? but with a different twist: here I am not interested in the minimal difference between two vowels that can be heard, but in reliable and reproducable annotatability, meaning that the number of potential vowels is reduced by this requirement.

From anecdotal evidence, I have two data points: A scheme using only the cardinal vowels can be used with good inter-annotator agreement. On the other hand, Theutonista is too fine grained (it essentially allows for 25 shades of each cardinal vowel) and even the same annotator cannot annotate the same sample consistently when he re-annotates it some weeks later.

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  • Nice question. theoretically, If we both agree that vowels can be annotated as (f0,f1), you can imagine that there are at least a few thousand vowels that a machine can distinguish from. again, theoretically.
    – David Haim
    Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 13:20
  • @DavidHaim I am interested in human annotators, not machines. absolute pitch is also out of the scope of my question, an /a/ at 440 Hz and an /a/ at 330 Hz are the same vowel.
    – Sir Cornflakes
    Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 13:23
  • I suspect that the answer is "less than the IPA", provided that the stimulus includes random and repeated samples covering all vowels. The interesting question is whether somebody can actually perform the test.
    – user6726
    Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 14:35
  • @user6726 dialectologists actually have a lot of audio to annotate, and they are striving for fine differences in vowels to mark differences between dialects. I am pretty sure that there is some experience and common knowledge in what annotation is reliable.
    – Sir Cornflakes
    Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 14:47
  • Which will give you clumpy distribution in your results: Bantuists are sensitive to certain distinctions and no better than the guy on the street for others; likewise Finno-Ugrists, Scandinavian dialectologists, etc. Is your question about a specific language group or geographical area?
    – user6726
    Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 14:55

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