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Dec 29, 2021 · The terms "tense" and "lax" are generally only used to describe vowels, specifically [i e o u] (tense) versus [ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ] (lax). However, tense and lax is exceptionally used to refer to Korean consonants; furthermore, the terms "fortis" and "lenis" used to talk about consonants, such that [p t k] would be fortis (strong) and [b d g] would be ...
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.
But for [i], the muscles are more tense than for [ɪ]. The same is true for the vowels in late and let, [e] and [ɛ]. And also for the vowels in food and foot, [u] and [ʊ] It can be hard to feel the physical difference between tense and lax vowels, but the distinction is actually an important one in the mental grammar of English.
- Catherine Anderson
- 2018
1 Vowels: their symbols and properties Conventionally, the first division in speech sounds is made between vowels and consonants. Symbols for vowels will be considered first, because there are fewer vowels than consonants. American English has a fairly rich vowel inventory, so we can illustrate most of the vowel symbols with English words.
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- 14
In languages where tense and lax vowels are in allophonic distribution, laxness and shorter duration might go together because contexts where the postvocalic consonant lacks good cues to place generally happen to be contexts that trigger vowel shortening, i.e. consonant clusters and word-final consonants (see Maddieson Reference Maddieson and Fromkin 1985 on closed syllable shortening and Katz ...
Mar 18, 2024 · T he tense vowels of English also tend to inherently be a bit longer than their lax counterparts. For example, the tense vowel in the English word beat is longer than the lax vowel in bit. Consonants may also differ from each other in length. Long consonants are often called geminates, while short consonants are called singletons.
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May 20, 2022 · A syllable is a peak of sonority that is surrounded by less sonorous sounds. What that means is that a syllable is made up of a vowel, or some other very sonorous sound, with some sounds before it and after it that are less sonorous, usually glides and consonants. The most sonorous sound, the peak of sonority, is called the nucleus of a syllable.