Page 214 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes a rather dubious one which appears to be based to some extent on a division between those vowels
which are familiar and those which are unfamiliar to speakers of most European languages. It is
possible to classify vowels quite unambiguously without resorting to this notion by specifying their
front/back, close/open and lip positions.
16.1 The Description and Distribution of English Monophthongs and
Diphthongs

Having established the vowel chart as a basic system of reference we can now proceed to a brief
description of the vowel phonemes of English and of their distribution in a manner similar to that
used in the case of consonants.
A. The English simple (“pure”) vowels or monophthongs.
a. English front vowels. There are four front vowel phonemes in English: [i:], [ w ], [e] and [æ]
1. [i:] is a close (high), long, tense, unrounded vowel. The duration of [i:] can be compared to
that of the Romanian vowel in plural nouns like genii and the sound is roughly similar to
the French vowel of the French word précise, though not so close. The vowel is distributed
in all three basic positions: word-initial: east; word-medial: dean and word-final: sea. As
already mentioned, it is longer if it occurs in syllable final position and shorter if it is
followed by a voiced sound, the shortest variants being those followed by a voiceless
obstruent. If followed by a nasal stop it is nasalized: e.g. bean, beam. It is spelt e: economy,
remark, or ee: eel, see, feet, or ea each, seal, plea. Other possible spellings are ie: fiend, ei:
seizing, i: machine, or, exceptionally: ey: key; ay: quay [ki:], eo: people, oe: Oedipus or eau:
Beauchamp [bi:tI m]
e
2. [w] This is a more retracted front vowel, and its degree of openness is close to that of the
cardinal half-close position. [w] is a short, lax, unrounded vowel, its length varying, as in
the case of the preceding vowel, according to the nature of the following consonant. The
length decreases if the following sound is voiceless. It is distributed in all three basic
positions: initial, medial and final: ink, kill, aptly. After the schwa, it is the commonest
English vowel in unstressed positions. The vowel is spelt i (e.g. ill, tick) or y; syntax, party.
Other spellings are possible as well, as in the exceptional examples minute [mww ww wnww ww w]
(NB. The adjective having the same spelling is read [mawnju : t], private [prawvwt], women
[www ww wmww ww wn]. As it commonly represents a reduced unstressed vowel, other spellings are also
possible - for instance day [deww ww w] is reduced to [dww ww w] in the names of the days of the week:
Friday [fraww ww wdww ww w]
3. [e] This is a short, lax, unrounded vowel whose degree of openness is intermediate between
cardinal half-close and half-open. It is a common vowel in English, distributed in initial
position: end, or medial position: tell. It never occurs in word-final position as it is normally
reduced to [w] or [ ] if it is unstressed or diphthongizes to [eww ww w] in loan words like attache,
fiance or cafe if it is stressed. It can occur, nevertheless, in syllable-final position, under
e
stress, as in telegraph [telww ww wgraf], peril [perww ww wl]. The vowel is spelt either e in words like elf,
fell, or ea in lead (n. = plumb), head or bread. It can be exceptionally spelt a in ate (the past
tense of eat), many, any, Thames or Pall Mall.
4. [æ] is the lowest front vowel of English. It is a short, lax, unrounded vowel, a little higher
than the cardinal vowel [a]. It is a very common vowel in English and, contrary to the
perception of many foreign learners of English, it is a short, not a long vowel. In fact, the
basic difference between this vowel and the preceding one is the degree of openness, [æ]
being lower. Romanian speakers of English find it particularly difficult to make the
difference between the two vowels (which is a contrastive, phonemic one) simply because
Romanian does not recognize this contrast between front low vowels as being a functional
one. Constant training can, however, lead to a correct pronunciation of the English sound.
The vowel is distributed in syllable-initial, medial and final position (e.g. ant [ænt], cat

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