Vowels

A comparative analysis of vowels in 4 languages

ENS701M

Experimental Phonetics

Maddalena Tovazzi

Minna Marika Timonen

1. Cardinal vowels

2. Vowel length

Cardinal vowels: Finnish and Icelandic

Cardinal vowels: Italian and English

2. Vowel length

Finnish Phonemic always shown in

spelling Tuli - tuuli Ahtisaari 0,117/ 0,177

Icelandic Allophonic VC = Long vowel VCC = Short vowel Fara - banna 0,153 / 0,294

Exceptions in Icelandic

LONG vowels also in:

one-syllable words with word-final vowel Þú 0,362 sec, fúll 0,227 sec

vowels preceding consonant clusters pr, tr, kr, sk, pj, tj, sj and tv, kv

Esja 0,288 sec, penni 0,098 sec

Italian

• There is no noticeable difference in lenght

• Vowels in final position are always pronounced clipped

• Vowels in stressed open syllables are long

• The distinction between close-mid (e o) and open-mid (ɛ ɔ) is made in stressed syllables only.

elemento

modo

English

• There is a well-known distinction between long and short vowels

• Nevertheless, many accents are nowadays “losing” this distinction

• More importance is given to lax/tense distinction, or free/checked distinction

Vowels are generally longer when in stressed syllables:

people carriage

Allophonic length

• Certain dialects display allophonic vowel length

• In the coda of a syllable, vowel phonemes are realized as allophones before voiced consonant phonemes

For example, in bat the phoneme is realized as a short allophone. In bad there is a longer realization, due to the presence of the voiced consonant:

bad bat

Alternation of vowels in a word

• Some Italian words seem to vary greatly between speakers

• One well known example is the word bene (good).

• There are 4 different realizations

1. closed + closed(0.175; 0.169)

2. open + closed(0.199; 0.086)

3. closed + open(0.114; 0.095)

4. open + open(0.167; 0.158)

• According to standard grammar, the correct pronunciation of the word is as shown in 3 (open/closed).

• All the four variations are nevertheless found everywhere. The alternation is NOT on a regional basis.