Page 135 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Unit 10: Phonemes: Detailed Study

busy, coffee, money, carriage, bargain, build, and foreign respectively. As regards its distribution, / Notes
i/ can occur intially, medially and finally in a word.
/e/ During the articulation of the vowel /e/, the front of the tongue is raised in the direction of the
hard palate to a position between the half-close and half-open positions. The lips are neutral. Thus /
e/ is front unrounded vowel between half-close and half-open positions. /e/ is represented in
spelling by e, ea, a, u, ie, ei, ai, ay, as in bed, dead, any, bury, /beri/, friend, leisure, said, /sed / and
says, /sez/. Regarding its distribution, it occurs initially and medially and does not occur finally.
/ae:/ The vowel/ / is articulated with the front of the tongue raised toward the hard palate to a
height between the half-open and half open-positions. The lips are neutral. It is thus a front unrounded
vowel between half-open and open positions. Regarding its distribution, it can occur initially and
medially in a word. It does not occur finally. It is represented in spelling by a as in apple, cat, bad, etc.
/a:/ can occur initially, medially and finally in a word. It is represented in spelling by a, au, (laugh),
e (clerk) and ea (heart). During the articulation of /a:/, the back of the tongue is in the fully open
position; it is very low in the mouth; the lips are neutral. It is thus a back open unrounded vowel.
/ / During the articulation of / / the back of the tongue is in the fully open position. The lips are
rounded. Hence it is a back open rounded vowel. In spelling it is represented by o, ua, au, ou, ow in
words such as pot, quality, because, cough, knowledge respectively. As far as its distribution is
concerned, / ,/ occurs initiallly and medially. It does not occur finally.
/ :/ occurs initially, medially and finally in a word, e.g. in ought, thought, law. In spelling it is
represented by a (wall), or (corn), our (court), ore (more), ough (bought), oor (door), aw (awful), al
(walk), oar (board), ough (caught), o (story), ar (war), etc. During the articulation of / :/ the back of
the tongue is raised towards the soft palate to a height between the half-open and half-close position.
The lips are rounded (more closely than for / :/described above). / :/ is thus a back rounded
vowel between half open and half-close position.
/u/ During the articulation of /u/, the fore part of the back of the tongue is raised towards the soft
palate to a height between the half-close and close positions. The lips are rounded. /u/ is thus a
centralized back rounded vowel between close and half-close positions. In spelling it is represented
by oo (book), u (bull), o (woman) and oul (could). It does not occur initially. It occurs very freely in
the medial position, e.g. book, cook. In the final position it occurs only in the weak form of the
preposition to.
/u:/ is articulated with the back of the tongue raised to an almost close position towards the soft
palate. The lips are closely rounded, /u:/ is thus a back close rounded vowel. In the spelling it is
manifested by (pronounced/ju/) as in ‘unit’, oo (fool), o (do) ou (soup), ui (fruit), ew (few) eau
(beauty), oe (shoe) and wo (two), /u:/ can occur initially and finally in a word.
/ ^ / During the articulation of / ^ /, the centre of the tongue is raised towards that part of the roof of
the mouth which is between the hard palate and soft palate, to a height between the open and half-
open positions. The lips are neutral. It is thus a central unrounded vowel between open and half-
open positions. This vowel is represented in spelling by u, o, ou, oo, oe as in out, come, rough, blood,
and does respectively. As regards its distribution, it can occur initially and medially in a word (up,
cup). But it does not occur finally.
/ :/ During the articulation of / :/ the centre of the tongue is raised towards the roof of the mouth
(i.e. between the hard and soft palates to a height between the half-close and half-open positions. The
e
e
lips are spread. / :/ is thus a central unrounded vowel between half-close and half-open positions.
In spelling, it can be represented by er (perfect), ir (bird), ur (church), or (word), ear (earth) and our
e
(journey). As far as its distribution is concerned, it can occur initially, medially and finally as in earn,
burn and fur.
/ / is a very frequently occurring vowel in English; it can occur initially, medially and finally in a
word (admit, excellent, and upper respectively). This vowel occurs only in unaccented syllables. It
e
is articulated with two different tongue-positions, depending upon whether it occurs finally in a
word or elsewhere.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 129