ENGLISH

PHONOLOGY

 Articulated

by shaping the tongue in the

mouth
Use differences in length combined with
differences in quality to distinguish the
vowels
Have difficulties to tell where the tongue is
when they are produced
all voiced
Produced with open approximation
Have two kinds; Monophthong & Diphthong
(Monophthong means single vowel and
during the production of the sound doesnt
involve tongue movement)
Aya's Prop/Int to Ling (2)

1. The position of the tongue

that form the resonance
chamber

Front

Central

Back
2. The height of the tongue

High

Mid

Low
3. The shape of the lips

Rounded vowels

Unrounded vowels
(spread or neutral)
Aya's Prop/Int to Ling (2)

4. The degree of closeness

Close
Half-close
Half open
open
5. The length of the
pronunciation of the vowel
by keeping the position of
the speech organs. The
length is also known as
quantity
Long
Short

Vowel height is affected by both position and

the mandible (open or close) and the vertical
position of the tongue (low or high).
1. Open: open vowels use a depressed position of
the mandible with a low position of the tongue.
2. Open-mid: open mid vowels use a particularly
depressed position to the mandible with the
tongue position being located half way between
the palatal area and the floor of the mouth.
3. Close-mid: close-mid vowels use a closed
mandibular position with a tongue position that
is located half way between the palatal area
and the floor of the mouth.
4. Close: close vowels use a closed mandibular
position and a high tongue position.

1.

2.

3.

Back : vowels are produced when the

back portion of the tongue is moved
up or done in velar area.
Central : the central vowel is
produced when tongue is resting in a
neutral position in the oral cavity.
Front : the front vowels are produced
by the placement of the tongue tip in
various position from the upper
incisors to the lower incisors.

 Lip

rounding refers to the position of

the lips during the production of the
lips during the production of vowel.
1. Rounded: vowels produced in the
rounded position require the lips to be
open and protruded to some degree.
2. Unrounded : vowels produced in an
unrounded position require the lips to
be spread and the corners of the
mouth retracted to varying degrees.

 Tense

vowels require tension in

selected muscles for the production
and are in long duration.
Lax vowels are produced when the
muscles are in resting posture and
are in short duration.

 Vowels

are plotted in a quadrilateral space.

The use of quadrilateral format allows the
notion of vowel space.
The vowel space is correlated to the position
of the tongue, lips, mandible, oral cavity size
and the acoustic aspects of the vowel
production.
The vowel positions are not absolute.
Vowels can also be described by the amount
of tension manifested by the muscle.
Vowel duration varies depending on the
phonemes adjacent positions to the given
vowel and dialectal variations.

Open and closed syllables are two common

syllable type used in the English language.
An open syllable is a syllable that ends with a
tense vowel or a diphthong. In a monosyllabic
word, the basic phonological pattern for and open
syllable is CV
A closed syllable is a syllable that ends with a
consonant sound. In a monosyllabic word, the
basic phonological patterns for a closed syllable is
VC or CVC.
Tense vowel may appear in both open and closed
syllable, whereas lax vowels can appear only in
closed syllables. Both tense and lax can initiate a
syllable.