Classification of English vowels.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 1058.

It is a reference point which is fixed and unchanged, established within the total range of vowel quality to which any other vowel sound can be directly related.

That means we can establish certain points which are accepted as fixed and unchanged. This system of reference points is called a system of cardinal vowels.The exact value of quality of any vowel may be defined within the system. The idea of the system was defined yet in the 18-th century, and the number of cardinal vowels varied. In England it was introduced by D. Jones.The principal cardinal vowels are 8 in number.

All the English vowels are classified according to the system of cardinal vowels. Any vowel may be defined in reference to it.

Vowels are made by voiced air passing through different mouth-shapes; the difference in the shape of the mouth are caused by different positions of the tongue and of the lips

There are 21 vowel phonemes in English. They are divided first of all into two large groups: monophthongsand diphthongs.This division is based on the stability of articulation.

A monophthong is a vowel in the pronunciation of which the organs of speech (principally the tongue and the lips) do not change their position throughout the duration of the vowel.

The particular quality, or timber of vowels depends on the volume and shape of the mouth-resonator and to a great extent also on the shape and the size of the opening of the resonator.

However, in English the character of certain vowels varies not only with their quality, but also with their quantity, or length (duration).

Thus the English monophthongs may be classified according to the following principles:

the position of the tongue;

the position of the lips;

their length;

the degree of tenseness;

The first two principles are the main ones because they reflect the qualitative characteristic of the English vowel phonemes, which is their most important feature, while their quantitative characteristic is of secondary importance. This is because the length of one and the same English vowel phoneme noticeably changes in different positions, while its quality remains unchanged. For example, the English [i:] in the word [si:t] seat is shorter than in the word [si:d] seed, although the quality of the vowel sound in both words is the same.