Page 164 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes 5. /u:/ (the phoneme spelled oo in food): high back vowel. It also called a back close rounded vowel.
It appears in both accented and unaccented positions. Examples of accented /u:/ are: ‘beautiful,
‘foolish, ‘frugal, etc. and the examples of unaccented /u:/ are: value, tuition, etc.
Central vowels, / Λ , ¥¥ ¥¥ ¥:, /: The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned
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halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.
1. / Λ / (the phoneme spelled u in but): mid central vowel. It is articulated with help of raised central
part of the tongue. Also described as central unrounded vowel between open and half-open. It
appears usually in accented syllables, but sometimes also appears in unaccounted syallbles.
Examples of accented are: ‘butter, e‘nough, etc. examples of unaccented are: hiccup, cucumber,
etc.
2. /b/ (this sound is also called schwa): In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa
(sometimes spelled shwa can mean the following:
(i) An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily
a mid-central vowel. Such vowels are often transcribed with the symbol ‘ ’, regardless of
their actual phonetic value.
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(ii) The mid-central vowel sound (rounded or unrounded) in the middle of the vowel chart,
stressed or unstressed. In IPA phonetic transcription, it is written as / /. In this case the
term mid-central vowel may be used instead of schwa to avoid ambiguity.
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3. /¥:/ (the phoneme is spelled as ea in early): To articulate this sound the centre of the tongue is
raised between half-open and half-closed position. This sound is also described as a central
unrounded vowel between half-close and half-open. /¥:/ appears mostly in accented positions as
well but sometimes in accened positions as well. Examples of accented /¥:/ are: ‘burden’, ‘certain’,
etc. and examples of unaccented /¥:/ are: commerce, foreword, etc.
/ / is also called central unrounded short vowel. This vowel sound appears only in unaccented
position. For examples, account, achieve, etc.
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The Diphthongs of English

A diphthong is a speech sound in which the articulatory mechanism moves continuously from an
initial vowel position to a final vowel position. In other words it is contour vowel–that is, a unitary
vowel that changes quality during its pronunciation, or “glides”, with a smooth movement of the
tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts
with “pure” vowels, or monophthong, where the tongue is held still.
In English there are total eight diphthongs, which can be classified in three categories according to
the tongue glide.
(i) In diphthongs /cI, aI, I/ the tongue glides towards /I/. These are called closing diphthongs.
(ii) In diphthongs /bυ, aυ/ the tongue glide towards /υ/. These diphthongs are also called
closing diphthongs.
(iii) In diphthongs /I , æ, υ / tongue glide towards / /. These diphthongs are called centering
dipthongs.
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Closing Diphthongs Gliding to /l/
(i) /el/(this diphthong is spelled as a in gate): For the production of this diphthong the glide of
tongue starts from just below the front of the tongue and moves toward /I/. /eI/ appears in
both accented and unaccented syllables. Examples of accented /el/ are: di‘splay, ‘neighbour,
etc. And examples of unaccented /eI/ are: survey, hesitate, etc.

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