Vowels: other considerations

• Diphthongs

• ATR

• Rhoticity

• Length

Diphthongs

• Two-vowel sequence

[ai]

[au]

[oi]

[ei] and [ou]

[ij] and [uw]

Diphthongs

• Make up one syllable– “naïve” and “knife”

– “employ” and “employee”

Diphthongs

ATR

• Advanced tongue root– Tongue root is more forward

– Larynx is lowered pharynx is enlarged

ATR

• ATR in Igbo

(Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996)

• Examples from Akan

Rhoticity

Rhoticity

• Rhoticized means “r-colored”– “bird” “park” “fur” “assert”

• Different articulations– Tongue tip raised (like retroflex)– Tongue tip lowered with tongue body bunched

up

Rhoticity

• Six different English speakers showing the “bunched up” style

(Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996)

Rhoticity

Length

• Arabic, Vietnamese, Hindi, German…

Mixe

Vowel inventory

• Five- and seven-vowel systems are most common

Spanish Yiddish Italian

Vowel inventory

• Some languages have many more

French (plus nasals)

English(plus diphthongs)

Vowels and orthography

• No vowel indication– Semitic languages

• Auxiliary vowel indication– (the same) Semitic languages

• Inherent vowel indication– Indian languages

• Independent vowel indication– English

No or auxiliary vowel indication

• Vn thgh ths sntnc hs n vwls y cn stll ndrstnd wht t sys

Inherent vowel indication

• Each grapheme includes a vowel (usually schwa)

• Gujarati