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Unit 16: Varieties of English Cardinal Vowel System

16.4 The English Vowel System Notes

The analysis of the English vowel system presented in previous units contains a large number of
phonemes, and it is not surprising that some phonologists who believe in the importance of keeping
the total number of phonemes small propose different analyses which contain fewer than ten vowel
phonemes and treat all long vowels and diphthongs as composed of two phonemes each. There are
different ways of doing this: one way is to treat long vowels and diphthongs as composed of two
vowel phonemes. Starting with a set of basic or “simple” vowel phonemes (e.g. w, e, æ , Λ , Z, • , c) it is
possible to make up long vowels by using short vowels twice. Our usual transcription for long
vowels is given in brackets:
ww ( ) i+ ææ ( ) ZZ ( ) •• ( ) cc ( )
u+
]+
f+
Y+
This can be made to look less unusual by choosing different symbols for the basic vowels. We will use
i, e, a, Λ , ] , u, c+ thus i+ could be transcribed as ii, Y+ as aa, ]+ as ]] , u+ as uu and f+ as cc . In this
approach, diphthongs would be composed of a basic vowel phoneme followed by one of i, u, c ,
while triphthongs would be made from a basic vowel plus one of i, u followed by c , and would
therefore be composed of three phonemes.
Another way of doing this kind of analysis is to treat long vowels and diphthongs as composed of a
vowel plus a consonant; this may seem a less obvious way of proceeding, but it was for many years
the choice of most American phonologists. The idea is that long vowels and diphthongs are composed
of a basic vowel phoneme followed by one of j, w, h (we should add r for rhotic accents). Thus the
diphthongs would be made up like this (our usual transcription is given in brackets):
ej ( ) wc (]•) h w ( )
wc
ew
ec
æ j æ w (a• ) eh ( )
j Z ( ) • h (•])
]w
Long vowels:
j w ( ) i+ æ ( ) hZ () hc () • ()
]+
u+
f+
h Y+
Diphthongs and long vowels are now of exactly the same phonological composition. An important
point about this analysis is that j, w, h do not otherwise occur finally in the syllable. In this analysis,
the inequality of distribution is corrected.
Although w , i+ are clearly distinct in most contexts, there are other contexts where we find a sound
which cannot clearly be said to belong to one or other of these two phonemes. The suggested solution
to this problem was to use the symbol i, which does not represent any single phoneme; a similar
proposal was made for u. We use the term neutralisation for cases where contrasts between phonemes
which exist in other places in the language disappear in particular contexts. There are many other
ways of analysing the very complex vowel system of English, some of which are extremely ingenious.
Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
16.5 Syllabic Consonants

It has to be recognised that syllabic consonants are a problem: they are phonologically different
from their non-syllabic counterparts. How do we account for the following minimal pairs, which
were given in earlier.
Syllabic Non-syllabic
‘coddling’ kd õZwļ ‘codling’ kdl õZw
Hungary’ hΛõ ŗg i ‘hungry’ hΛõg ri

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