Vowels and

Diphthongs

VOWELS

• Vowel is a speech sound produced without significant constriction of the air flowingthrough the mouth.

• Vowels are produced with a relatively open vocal tract.

• Vowels do not have place and manner of articulation.

• Vowels are almost always voiced.• Vocal fold vibration is the source for

vowel sounds. • The standard descriptors for consonants

(place, manner, and voicing) are not helpful when we want to describe vowels.

Vowel sounds can be divided into sets in a number of different ways.

1. In terms of voicing. In English, all

vowels are voiced (except when whispering), but some languages, such as Japanese, have voiceless vowels as well.

2. In terms of which part of the tongue

is raised, distinguishing between front vowels (as in eat), in which the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth, central vowels (as in cup), and back vowels (as in coop), in which the tongue is positioned towards the back of the mouth.

3. In terms of how high the tongue

is raised, distinguishing between high vowels (or close vowels) as in beat, mid vowels (or half-close vowels) as in bait, and low vowels (or open vowels) as in bat.

4. In terms of whether or not the

vowel is tense or lax

5. In terms of whether or not the lips are

rounded (as in shoe) or unrounded (as in she). In English, rounding is allophonic (back vowels are rounded; front vowels are not), but some languages (such as French) contain front rounded vowels and some others (such as Turkish) contain back unrounded vowels.

6. In terms of length, distinguishing

between long vowels such as in knee and short vowels as in knit. In English, length is allophonic (tense vowels are long; lax vowels are short), but some languages distinguish between vowels that are the same in quality and only different inlength.

• Broadly speaking, there are two types of vowels in English, namely, monophthongs and diphthongs.

• Diphthongs are two-part vowels, whereas monophthongs have only one part.

DIPHTHONG

• Diphthong is a vowel in which there is a change in quality during a single syllable, as in the English words boy, buy, bow.

• Diphthongs can be analyzed as a sequence of two vowels or as vowelglide

• Semi-Vowel is a speech sound (a consonant) which is produced by allowing the airstream from the lungs to move through the mouth and/or nose with only very slight friction.

• For example, in English the /j/ in /jes/ yes is a semi-vowel.

• In terms of their articulation, semi-vowels are very like vowels, but they function as consonants in the sound system of a language.