Lecture 4

Articulation and articulation forms

Vowel and
consonant phonemes

There are two main classes of sounds traditionally distinguished in any language — consonants and
vowels. The opposition ‘vowels vs. consonants’ is a linguistic universal and it is clearly seen on all levels
of sound production.
This distinction on the acoustic level is clear due to the effect produced by these sounds: consonants
have voice and noise combined, while vowels consist of voice only.
On the articulatory level the difference is exercised through the work of speech organs: vowels are
produced without any obstruction, consonants are produced with the help of various obstructions, such as
complete, partial or intermittent blockages of the air passage.
On the perception level the difference is understood through the integral characteristics of tone in
vowels and the indispensable characteristics of noise in consonants.
On the functional level both vowel and consonant classes of sounds are represented as a set of
phonemes established with the help of phonological analysis. Each of the classes taken separately may
undergo further classifications on the acoustic, articulatory, auditory and functional levels.
The first three levels should be studied simultaneously as there is no sharp division between them.
Thus the articulatory classification defines the peculiarities of speech sounds as the combination of
articulatory, acoustic and auditory characteristics.
The phonological classification studies the peculiarities of sounds from the functional point of view.

General characteristics of English vowels

Vowels are speech sounds made with the air stream that meets no obstruction in the mouth,
pharyngeal or nasal cavities. There is no noise component characteristic in the production of vowel
sounds.
A minimum vowel system of any language is likely to take the form of a triangle with the sounds [i,
u, a] at the tops. They form boundaries of the vowel system as acoustically stable and articulatory
different from each other sounds.

Sounds [e, o] may be added to them to mark the medium degree of unlikeness in the acoustic and
articulatory characteristics. Thus we get the most common vowel system with 5 vowels.
 The British linguist D. Jones tried to establish a broader classification of vowels for all languages. He
devised the system of eight Cardinal Vowels on the physiological basis with the help of X-ray
photography of the tongue positions. This system is recognized by most foreign linguists and serves the
basis of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
IPA symbols for the cardinal vowels are: 1 [i], 2 [e], 3 [e], 4 [a], 5 [a], 6 [°], 7 [o], 8 [u]- The triangle
form in this case is changed into a trapezium.

The articulatory changes in this case should be described as follows: the front part of the tongue
raised as close as possible to the palate forms point of articulation No.1, the gradual lowering of the
tongue to the back lowest position gives point No.5, the lowest front position of the tongue gives point
No.4, the upper back limit for the tongue position gives point No.8. The tongue positions between these
points form points for No. 2, 3, 6, 7.

The system of cardinal vowels is an international standard, but in spite of great theoretical
significance its practical application is limited. In language teaching this system can be learned only by
oral instructions from a teacher who knows how to pronounce the vowels.
The model pronunciation can be illustrated by the following examples:
1 [i] — German Biene, Russian пили;
2 [e] — Russian тесть;
3 [е] — Russian эта;
4 [a] — French la;
5 [a] — English hot;
6 [°] — German Sonne;
7 [o] — French Rose;
8 [u] — German gut.
The system of cardinal vowels gets necessary transformations when applied to a particular language.
The standard of English pronunciation, called Received Pronunciation or BBC English, contains 20
vowel phonemes [i, e, ж, a:, °, o:, u, c^, э:, 9, i:, u:, ei, ai, °i, au, su, i9, еэ, иэ].
They may be exemplified by the following words: [i] ink, [e] net, [ж] act, [a:] arc, [°] on, [o:] all, [u]
put, [л] utter, [э:] earn, [э] about, [i:] neat, [u:] pool, [ei] eight, [ai] my, [au] how, [°i] oil, [ia] ear, [еэ]
air, [пэ] doer, [Su] no.

3.1. Articulatory classification

Articulatory classification of English vowels describes distinctive changes in the stability of
articulation, the tongue position, the lip position, the vowel length, the vowel tenseness and the character
of the vowel end.
I. According to the stability of articulation English vowels are divided into monophthongs,
diphthongs and diphthongoids.
Monophthongs are pure vowel sounds with stable unchanging articulation: [i, e, ж, a:, °, o:, u, л, э:,
э].
Diphthongs are complex vowel sounds with unstable articulation including an articulatory glide from
one position to another: [ei, ai, oi, au, su, is, еэ, us]. They consist of two elements: the nucleus with a
 strong and distinct articulation which forms the starting point of a vowel, and the glide which reveals
the direction of the sound change.
Diphthongoids are vowel sounds with a slight change in articulation when the difference between the
starting point and the end of the sound is not so clear: [i:, u:].
II. The variations in the tongue position also have an effect on the quality of vowel sounds. They
include horizontal and vertical movements of the tongue.
1. According to horizontal movements of the tongue, vowels are divided into front, front-retracted,
central, back, and back-advanced.
Front vowels are produced when the tongue is in the front part of the mouth and its front is raised to
the hard palate: [i:, e, ж], [ei] and the nucleus of [еэ].
Front-retracted vowels are pronounced when the tongue is in the front part of the mouth but slightly
retracted: [i] and the nucleus of [is, ai, au].
Central vowels are produced when the tongue is in the central part of the mouth and its front is raised
to the back part of the hard palate: №, э:, э] and the nucleus of [эи].
Back vowels are pronounced when the tongue is in the back part of the mouth and its back is raised to
the soft palate [o, o:, u:, a:] and the nucleus of [oi].
Back-advanced vowels are produced when the tongue is in the back part of the mouth but slightly
advanced and its centre is raised to the soft palate: [u] and the nucleus of [то].
2. According to vertical movements of the tongue, vowels are divided into close, mid, and open.
Close (high) vowels are produced when the front or back of the tongue is raised high to the palate: [i:,
i, u, u:].
Open (low) vowels are pronounced when the front or back of the tongue is at the lowest position: [ж,
a:, o, o:].
Mid (half-open) vowels are produced when the raised part of the tongue is between the close and
open positions [e, л, э:, э].
Each of these vertical tongue positions has two variants: broad and narrow, which include a higher or
lower position of articulation within one of the levels. Thus a more precise classification includes the
following groups:
— close narrow vowels [i:, u:];
— close broad vowels [i, u];
— mid narrow vowels [e, э:];
— mid broad vowels [л, э];
— open narrow vowel [o:];
— open broad vowels [ж, a:, o].
The nuclei of diphthongs are always pronounced within broad variants.
III. According to the position of the lips, vowels may be rounded or unrounded.
Rounded vowels are produced when the lips are drawn together with a round opening between them:
[o, o:, u, u:].
Unrounded vowels are pronounced when the lips are neutral or spread: [i:, i, e, ж, a:, л, э:, э].
IV. According to the length the classes of long and short vowels are distinguished:
long vowels are capable of being continued during a longer period of time [i:, a:, o:, э:, u:];
short vowels — during a shorter period of time [i, e, o, u, э, л].
The vowel sound [ж] stands apart from this category because it’s relatively long.
V. The degree of tenseness which distributes vowels into tense and lax is closely connected with
vowel length.
Tense vowels are produced when the speech organs are tense, here belong all English long vowels:
[i:, a:, o:, э:, u:].
 Lax vowels are produced with less tenseness of the speech organs, here belong all English short
vowels: [i, e, o, u, э, л, ж].
VI. English vowels are also classified according to the character of the end into checked and free
(unchecked). This criterion is connected with the quality of vowel sounds under the influence of word
stress.
Checked vowels are pronounced with maximum force of utterance and have a strong end. They are
abruptly interrupted by the following consonant and therefore occur only in closed syllables. These
are English stressed vowels followed by a strong voiceless consonant (bet [bet], dock [dok], cart
[ka:t], tape [teip], teacher [‘tirtfs]).
Free vowels are pronounced with lessening force of utterance and have a weak end. Here belong
English vowels followed by a weak voiced consonant or no consonant at all (pull [pul], card [ka:d],
tame [teim], try [trai], illusion [i’lu:jn]).

Problem of diphthongs and diphthongoids

The classification of English simple and complex vowels gets different interpretation in Russian and
foreign linguistics.
Monophthongs are singled out by all phoneticians who consider that these are simple vowels with
more or less stable position of the articulating speech organs. But the number of monophthongs may
differ in some classifications because of various points of view on the phonemic status of complex vowels
— diphthongs and diphthongoids. For example, some foreign linguists liquidate diphthongs as unit
phonemes in accordance with the principle of structural simplicity and economy, others single out both
monophthongs and diphthongs but reject the existence of diphthongoids.
The English diphthongs are the object of sharp phonological debates. The question is: whether they
are biphonemic sound complexes or composite monophonemic entities? Modern linguistics uses a
complex approach to the solution of this problem.
According to the rules of articulatory indivisibility N.S. Trubetskoy states that diphthongs are
unisyllabic, because:
— their parts can’t belong to different syllables;
— they present one phoneme with gliding articulation;
— their length doesn’t exceed the length of a single phoneme.
According to the criterion of morphological indivisibility added by L.R. Zinder English diphthongs
can‘t be separated, because they belong to one morpheme: buy [bai] — buyer ['bai-s]. Thus English
diphthongs differ from Russian biphonemic combinations like [ай, ой]: чай [чай] — чаю [ча-йу], стой
[стой] — стою [сто-йу].
Taking this information into consideration, phoneticians grant mono- phonemic status to the English
diphthongs on the basis of articulatory, morphonological and syllabic indivisibility combined with the
criterion of duration:
— English diphthongs are pronounced within a single articulatory effort;
— neither morpheme nor syllable boundary can separate the nucleus and the glide (saying ['sei-ip],
crying ['krai-ip], enjoying [in- 'djOi-nj], slower ['slsu-s], ploughing ['plau-ip], clearer ['klis-rs],
airing ['ЕЭ-np], poorer ['pus-rs]);
— the duration of diphthongs coincides with the one of long monophthongs in the same phonetic
context (site [sait] — seat [si:t], coat [ksut] — caught [ko:t]).
With the help of commutation test V.A. Vassilyev shows that any diphthong can form oppositions
with practically all vowels and thus defines the monophonemic status of diphthongs (bite — bit [bait —
bit]; bite — but [bait — bAt]; bite — bought [bait — bo:t]; etc.).
The monophonemic character of English diphthongs is also proved by native speakers’ intuition who
perceive these sound complexes as a single unit element.
Besides diphthongs Russian linguists also define such a subclass of English vowels as diphthongoids
on the basis of slight articulatory instability in the pronunciation of [i:, u:] which becomes gradually
stronger in modern English.
 The division of English vowels into monophthongs, diphthongs and dipthongoids is very important
for language teaching since there are no such sounds in Russian. Russian sound combinations like [йа,
йо, йу, ой, ай, ау, уа] (яд, йод, юг, рой, край, мяукать, вуаль) are biphonemic clusters of two vowels or
a vowel and the sonorant [й], when both elements are pronounced with equal energy and distinction.
So special attention should be given to pronunciation teaching of English diphthongs, presenting a
phonemic entity of two elements, the first of them being a strong and distinct nucleus and the second — a
weak and indistinct glide. The pronunciation of diphthongoids characterized by a certain degree of
instability, which is greater in comparison with monophthongs and smaller in comparison with
diphthongs, also requires special attention.

3.5. Problem of vowel length

Vowel length or vowel quantity has been the point of disagreement among phoneticians for a long
time.
From practical point of view the quantity of a vowel in connected speech is presupposed by many
factors:
— its proper length;
— the phonetic context (be — bead — beat [bi: — brd — bit]);
— the word stress (in stressed syllables vowels are longer, cf. forecast ['fo:ka:st] — to forecast
[fo'ka:st]);
— the number of syllables (vowels are shorter in polysyllabic words: verse [vs:s] — university
[Juni'vs-siti]);
— the syllabic structure (in words with V, CV, CCV type vowels are longer than in VC, CVC,
CCVC type: [э:] in err and earn; [ju:] in dew and duty);
— other factors (the position in the tone group, the position in the utterance, the tempo of the
utterance, the type of pronunciation, the style of pronunciation, etc.).
But the problem phonology investigates is whether variations in quantity are meaningful and thus can
be treated as a relevant feature when characterizing the system of English vowels.
Foreign scholars usually follow the approach of an outstanding British phonetician D. Jones who
underlines the phonological relevance of vowel quantity. He states that words may be distinguished from
one another with the help of oppositions of different vowel length called chronemes (deed — did, fool —
full).
An outstanding Russian phonetician V.A. Vassilyev objects to this point of view and considers that
the difference in the quantity of vowels should be subordinate to the difference in their quality. This
conclusion is based on two laws characterizing any language system:
(1) a relevant feature must characterize a number of units;
(2) a feature is systemic if it does not depend on the context.
The first law can be proved with the help of distinctive oppositions containing vowels of different
length. Most English vowels are characterized by the predominance of other distinctive features besides
quantitative correlation:
— in [i:, u:] vs. [i, u] — diphthongoids vs. monophthongs;
— in [э:] vs. [э] — stressed vocalism (a vowel seldom occurs in unstressed syllables) vs. unstressed
vocalism (a vowel never occurs in stressed syllables);
— in [a:] vs. [л] — back open vs. central mid characteristics.
This gives the ground not to treat vowel length as a phonologically relevant feature.
The second law shows that besides a great deal of other factors the absolute length of vowels greatly
depends on phonetic context. Long vowels are the longest in terminal positions (bee, bar), they are
shorter before voiced consonants (bead, hard), and the shortest before voiceless consonants (beet, cart).
Still the words like bit and beat are perceived as different, because vowels differ in quality: [i] is a front
retracted pure monophthongs whereas [i:] is a diphthongized vowel.
So vowel length can’t be considered a minimal distinctive feature since it varies under the influence
of different phonetic context and serves as an incidental feature characterizing vowel sounds of a certain
quality. Such an approach to phonological relevance of the quantity of English vowels is shared by most
Russian and many British phoneticians.