How are vowels grouped according to the position of the lips?

How are vowels grouped according to the position of the lips?

Vowels are produced with vocal tract open. For that reason, they are said to be articulated with an open articulation, in opposition to consonants. We know that in the production of a sound several elements participate. Vibration and resonance. In the case of English vowels, they are all produced with vibration of the vocal folds, they are voiced sounds. The escape of the air flow coming from the lungs is always made through the mouth only, because the soft palate is in its raised position, that means they are oral sounds. More has to be said about the resonance effect produced by the position of the articulators in the oral cavity, mainly. In this respect the only possible articulation is that of the tongue position, being more or less raised more or less advanced because the mouth will be open we have just stated. Two parameters are then firstly considered: height of the tongue and backness of the tongue. One more parameter has to do with the position of the lips, which are considered as another resonator. So the rounding of the lips is also considered to describe how a vowel is produced. According to the rounding lips vowels can be: spread, rounding or neutral.

Examples: [i:], - ee- see, eat, scene etc….[i],- rich, city, pretty etc….. [e],egg, any etc….. [әe], cat, hat, man etc…

The lips are slightly spread.

[˄], [a:], [з:], -the lips position are neutral.

[o], [o:] [u],, [u:],- the vowels are pronounced with rounded position for the lips.

How are vowels grouped according to the position of the lips?

1.The English vowel phonemes are divided onto two large groups: monophthongs and diphthongs.

A monophthong is a pure(unchanging) vowel sound. In its pronunciation the organs of speech do not change their position throughout the duration of the vowel. [i],[e],[æ],[?],[u],[ʌ],[ə],[α:], [з:]

A diphthong is a complex sound consisting of two vowel elements pronounced so as to form a single syllable. In the pronunciation of a diphthong the organs of speech start in the position of one vowel and glide in the direction of another vowel. The first element of an English diphthong is called the nucleus. It is strong, clear and distinct. The second element is rather weak. It is called glide.

There are 8 diphthongs. There are two vowels in English ([i:] and [u:]) which may have a diphthongal pronunciation. These vowels are called diphthongized vowels, or diphthongoids. Thus the English monophthongs may be classified according to the following principles:

I .According to the tongue position

II. According to the lip position

III. According to the length of the vowel

IV. According to the degree of tenseness

According to the length vowels may be long and short.

The following English vowels may be describe as long: [i:], [a:], [o:], [u:], [з:].

The following English vowels may be describe as short: [i], [e], [ə],[][ʌ], [ʋ], [æ].

Vowels contrast between “Long” and “Short” based on the amount of TIME spent on them; generally a Long vowel is pronounced twice as long as a Short vowel. Length is a feature in Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Old English, for example. Some languages even have more than two degrees of length! In notation, long vowels can be differentiated from short vowels by doubling them (/aa/ for a long vowel, /a/ for a short vowel) or by writing a colon (:) after them (/i:/ for a long vowel, /i/ for a short vowel).

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 7989