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Dec 6, 2023 · The primary distinction between lax and tense vowels lies in their length and the tension of the muscles used in their production. Lax vowels are shorter and produced with relatively loose muscles in the vocal apparatus. In contrast, tense vowels are longer and require relatively tense muscles for their articulation.
- Lax vowels are shorter sounds produced with relatively loose muscles in the vocal apparatus. They occur in words like “bit,” “bet,” and “hat.”
- Tense vowels are longer sounds produced with relatively tense muscles in the vocal apparatus. They typically occur at the end of one-syllable words...
- The main difference between lax and tense vowels is their length and the tension of the muscles used to produce them. Lax vowels are shorter and pr...
- Mastering the distinction between lax and tense vowels is important for accurate pronunciation in American English. Understanding and correctly pro...
- Practicing and refining the pronunciation of lax and tense vowels can lead to improved language fluency and clarity in speech. Focus on recognizing...
We classify vowels according to four pieces of information: The high/mid/low distinction has to do with how high the tongue is in the mouth. Say this list of words: beet, bit, bait, bet, bat. Now do the same thing, but leave off the “b” and the “t” and just say the vowels. You can feel that your tongue is at the front of your mouth and ...
- Catherine Anderson
- 2018
The terms 'tense' and 'lax' are used in descriptions of Canadian French varieties to basically describe how the vowels /i y u/ are allophonically pronounced [ɪ ʏ ʊ] in certain contexts. The main one being short, closed syllables. For example, petit [p (ə)t͡si] versus petite [p (ə)t͡sɪt], sous [su] versus soupe [sʊp], lu [ly] versus ...
- How do we describe vowels?
- Tongue position
- Lip rounding
- Tense and lax vowels
- Simple vowels, glided vowels, and diphthongs
- The vowel /ɚ /
- “Invisible /y/”
- Vowel length
- What affects vowel duration?
- My friend should have called me.
- Vowels in unstressed syllables
- Vowels and consonants: A blurry line
- Sources of learner problems with vowels
- Sagittal section diagrams for English vowels
Vowels are sounds in which the air stream moves up from the lungs and through the vocal tract very smoothly; there’s nothing blocking or constricting it. The first sounds in the words extra, only, and apple are vowels. In general, every syllable has a vowel sound (although, as we saw in the last chapter, the consonants /n/, /l/, and /r/ can somet...
The way we move and shape our tongue plays a big part in giving each vowel its own sound. When you pronounce a vowel, even a small change in the position of your tongue can make a big difference in how the vowel sounds. When we talk about tongue position, we mean: Where is the highest, tensest, or most active part of the tongue? The way we descri...
Vowel sounds are also affected by the shape of the lips—whether they’re very rounded, just a little rounded, relaxed, or stretched a bit wide. In English, the back vowels, /uw/, /ᴜ/, /ow/, and /ɔ/, are pronounced with varying degrees of lip rounding, and /r/ also has a little lip rounding, whether it’s used as a consonant (/r/) or a vowel (/ɚ/). ...
We can also divide vowels into two categories called tense and lax vowels. This is a distinction that separates pairs of vowels like those in sheep (/iy/) and ship (/ɪ/), late (/ey/) and let (/ɛ/), fool (/uw/) and full (/ᴜ/). We traditionally think of these as being a difference in the tension or tightness of the muscles of the tongue or lips while...
Finally, we can classify vowels based on how much tongue movement there is during the vowel. For example, when we say /æ/ as in bad, the tongue position and quality of the vowel stay constant throughout the sound, even if we continue to say the vowel for a long time. We call this type of vowel a simple vowel or a pure vowel. Other vowels have a sm...
There is one more vowel-like sound in English: /ɚ/. This is the sound in words like bird, first, and her. In many textbooks this sound is analyzed as a combination of a vowel plus a consonant, and represented by the symbols /ər/, /ɜr/, /ər/, or /ɜr/. In others, it’s represented by a single symbol, /ɚ/. Whichever symbols we use, this sound is best t...
Learners sometimes have trouble knowing how to pronounce words spelled with the vowel letters u, ue, eu, ew, or ui. In American English, these letters sometimes represent the sound /uw/, as in the words suit (/suwt/) or true (/truw/), and sometimes /yuw/, as in the words music (/myuwzɪk/), computer (/kəmpyuwtɚ/), and pew (/pyuw/). In some words spe...
We often hear about “long vowels” and “short vowels.” When people call vowels “long” or “short,” they do not mean that the sounds are identical except for length. We don’t want students to think that the only difference between the vowel pairs /iy/ and /ɪ/, /ey/ and /ɛ/, or /uw/ and /ᴜ/ is that one is longer in duration and the other is shorter. Ma...
As it happens, the time duration of any vowel sound varies a lot. All vowel sounds tend to be longer in some environments and shorter in others. Here are two important principles that affect the time duration of vowels: The following sound: The duration of a vowel depends a lot on the sound that comes after it. Vowel sounds are usually shorter in d...
The words friend and called are stressed more than the others, and so they last longer. The words my, should, have, and me are unstressed, and so they are very short. The words last different lengths of time, even though they each have one syllable. What do students need to know about vowel length? From a teaching perspective, there are three poi...
Words can be divided into syllables—rhythmic units of sound that each get one “beat.” In a word with more than one syllable, one of the syllables is stressed, or emphasized. Other syllables are unstressed. In English, vowels in unstressed syllables are often different from those in stressed syllables. They become weaker, quicker, and less clear tha...
In looking at vowels and consonants, we’ve seen something surprising: The differences between vowels and consonants are not as clear-cut as we might imagine, and some sounds can have qualities of both. For example, we’ve seen that a few consonants (/n/, /r/, and /l/) can also be used as the “heart” of syllables when they become vowel-like syllabic ...
New sounds: English has more vowel sounds than many other languages. In fact, the average number of vowels in the languages of the world is five or six. English has more than twice that number! Vowels that are found in English but not in the learner’s language are often challenging since the learner’s tongue and lips need to get used to moving int...
/ɔ/ (bought) /ɑ/ (box) /ay/ (by) /oy/ (boy) /aw/ (cow)
Tense vowels are sometimes claimed to be articulated with a more advanced tongue root than lax vowels, but this varies, and in some languages, it is the lax vowels that are more advanced, or a single language may be inconsistent between front and back or high and mid vowels (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996, 302–4). The traditional definition, that tense vowels are produced with more "muscular ...
Lax vowels are characterized by a more relaxed and shorter pronunciation, while tense vowels are produced with more muscular tension and are longer in duration. Lax vowels include sounds like /ɪ/ in "sit" and /ʌ/ in "but," while tense vowels include sounds like /i:/ in "see" and /u:/ in "boot." The distinction between lax and tense vowels is ...
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Why do word-final vowels tense? A contrast-based account Benjamin Storme & Melanie Lancien (University of Lausanne)´ 1. Background. In many languages with tense-lax contrasts, tense and lax vowels are allowed to contrast in word-final syllables before consonants ( C#) but not word-finally ( #), where only tense vowels are permitted.
