Фонетика

1. The articulatory classification of the English vowels.

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis.

Daniel Jones developed the cardinal vowel system to describe vowels in terms of the common features height (vertical dimension), backness (horizontal dimension) and roundedness (lip position). There are however still more possible features of vowel quality, such as nasality, phonation, and tongue root position.

Height

In high vowels, such as [i] and [u], the tongue is positioned high in the mouth, whereas in low vowels, such as [a], the tongue is positioned low in the mouth.

The International Phonetic Alphabet identifies seven different vowel heights:

• close vowel (high vowel)

• near-close vowel

• close-mid vowel

• mid vowel

• open-mid vowel

• near-open vowel

• open vowel (low vowel)

Backness

Vowel backness is named for the position of the tongue during the articulation of a vowel relative to the back of the mouth. In front vowels, such as [i], the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth, whereas in back vowels, such as [u], the tongue is positioned towards the back of the mouth.

The International Phonetic Alphabet identifies five different degrees of vowel backness:

• front vowel

• near-front vowel

• central vowel

• near-back vowel

• back vowel

Roundedness

Roundedness refers to whether the lips are rounded or not. In most languages, roundedness is a reinforcing feature of mid to high back vowels, and is not distinctive. Usually the higher a back vowel is, the more intense the rounding.

Nasalization

Nasalization refers to whether some of the air escapes through the nose. In nasal vowels, the velum is lowered, and some air travels through the nasal cavity as well as the mouth. An oral vowel is a vowel in which all air escapes through the mouth. French, Polish and Portuguese contrast nasal and oral vowels.

Phonation

Voicing describes whether the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation of a vowel. Most languages only have voiced vowels, but several Native American languages, such as Cheyenne and Totonac, contrast voiced and devoiced vowels. Vowels are devoiced in whispered speech. In Japanese and Quebec French, vowels that are between voiceless consonants are often devoiced.

Modal voice, creaky voice, and breathy voice (murmured vowels) are phonation types that are used contrastively in some languages. Often, these co-occur with tone or stress distinctions; in the Mon language, vowels pronounced in the high tone are also produced with creaky voice. In cases like this, it can be unclear whether it is the tone, the voicing type, or the pairing of the two that is being used for phonemic contrast. This combination of phonetic cues (i.e. phonation, tone, stress) is known as register or register complex.

Tongue root retraction

Advanced tongue root (ATR) is a feature common across much of Africa. The contrast between advanced and retracted tongue root resembles the tense/lax contrast acoustically, but they are articulated differently. ATR vowels involve noticeable tension in the vocal tract.

Accord to the degree of tenseness traditionally long vowels are defined as tense (напряженные) and short as lex (ослаблен). The tense and lex were introduced by Sweet. When the muscles of the lips, tongue, chicks and the back walls of the pharynx are tense, the vowels produced can be characterized as tense. When tense organs are relatively relaxed, lex vowels are produced.

According to the length Eng vowels are subdivided into long and short. Vowel length may depend on:

1position of the vowel in a word

2word stress

3the number of syllables in a word

4the character of the syllable structure

5sonority

1. positions of dependants of length can be illustrated by the following example [bi: - bid – bit]. In the terminal конец position a vowel is the longest it shortness before a voiced consonant, it is the shortest before a voiceless consonant.

2. a vowel is longer in a stressed syllable than in unstressed one: fOrecast - fourcAst.(прогноз – предсказывать погоду). In the verb [o] is shorter than in the noun, though it maybe pronounced with [o] equally long.

3. if we compare a one syllable word and a word consisting of more than one syllable, we may observe that similar vowels are shorter in a polysyllabic word. Thus in the word verse (стих) [3:] is longer than in university.

4. In words with V,CV,CCV type of syllable the vowel length is greater than in words with VC,CVC, CCVC type of syllable. Ex. [3:] is longer in err (ошибаться) (V type) than in Earn (VC type).

5. vowels of low sonority are longer than vowels of greater sonority. It is so because the speaker makes more affort to produce greater auditory effect, while pronouncing vowels of lower sonority thus making them longer. Ex. [i] is longer than [o], [i:] is longer than [a:]

Besides vowel length depends on the tempo of speech.