Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization. When pronouncing a rounded vowel, the lips form a circular opening, while unrounded vowels (also called spread vowels) are pronounced with the lips relaxed. In most languages, front vowels tend to be unrounded, while back vowels tend to be rounded. But some languages, such as French and German, distinguish rounded and unrounded front vowels of the same height, while Vietnamese distinguishes rou ...

Including:

• Roundedness - Types of rounding

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There are two types of vowel rounding: endolabial, or compressed, and exolabial, or protruded. The northern Iroquoian languages have no labial consonants. They do have /w/, /gʷ/, and /kʷ/, but these do not involve noticeable rounding (protrusion) of the lips. It may be that they are purely velar [ɰ, gᶭ, kᶭ], but it is also possible that they are compressed. It is not known how this might ...

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Roundedness, Roundedness - Types of rounding

Read more here: » Roundedness: Encyclopedia II - Roundedness - Types of rounding

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, which are characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract. A vowel is also understood to be syllabic: an equivalent open but non-syllabic sound is called a semivowel. In all languages, vowels form the nucleus or peak of syllables, whereas consonants form the onset and (in languag ...

Including:

• Vowel - Articulation
• Vowel - Height
• Vowel - Backness
• Vowel - Roundedness
• Vowel - Nasalization
• Vowel - Phonation
• Vowel - Tongue root retraction
• Vowel - Secondary narrowings in the vocal tract
• Vowel - Tenseness/checked vowels vs. free vowels
• Vowel - Acoustics
• Vowel - Prosody and intonation
• Vowel - Monophthongs diphthongs triphthongs
• Vowel - Vowels in languages
• Vowel - Vowel systems
• Vowel - Written vowels
• Vowel - Written vowels in writing systems

Read more here: » Vowel: Encyclopedia - Vowel

The articulatory features that distinguish different vowels in a language are said to determine the vowel's quality. Daniel Jones developed the cardinal vowel system to describe vowels in terms of the common features height (vertical dimension), backness (horizontal dimension) and roundedness (lip position). These three parameters are indicated in the schematic IPA vowel diagram on right. There are however still more possible features of vowel quality, such the velum position (nasality), type of vocal fold vibration (phonation), and tongue root position.

See also:

Vowel, Vowel - Articulation, Vowel - Height, Vowel - Backness, Vowel - Roundedness, Vowel - Nasalization, Vowel - Phonation, Vowel - Tongue root retraction, Vowel - Secondary narrowings in the vocal tract, Vowel - Tenseness/checked vowels vs. free vowels, Vowel - Acoustics, Vowel - Prosody and intonation, Vowel - Monophthongs diphthongs triphthongs, Vowel - Vowels in languages, Vowel - Vowel systems, Vowel - Written vowels, Vowel - Written vowels in writing systems

Read more here: » Vowel: Encyclopedia II - Vowel - Articulation

A vowel sound whose quality doesn't change over the duration of the vowel is called a monophthong. Monophthongs are sometimes called "pure" or "stable" vowels. A vowel sound that glides from one quality to another is called a diphthong, and a vowel sound that glides between three qualities is a triphthong. All languages have monophthongs and many languages have diphthongs, but triphthongs or vowel sounds with even more target qualities are relatively rare cross-linguistically. English has all three types: the vowel sound in hit ...

See also:

Vowel, Vowel - Articulation, Vowel - Height, Vowel - Backness, Vowel - Roundedness, Vowel - Nasalization, Vowel - Phonation, Vowel - Tongue root retraction, Vowel - Secondary narrowings in the vocal tract, Vowel - Tenseness/checked vowels vs. free vowels, Vowel - Acoustics, Vowel - Prosody and intonation, Vowel - Monophthongs, diphthongs, triphthongs, Vowel - Vowels in languages, Vowel - Vowel systems, Vowel - Written vowels, Vowel - Written vowels in writing systems

Read more here: » Vowel: Encyclopedia II - Vowel - Monophthongs, diphthongs, triphthongs

The name "vowel" is often used for the symbols used for representing vowel sounds in a language's writing system, particularly if the language uses an alphabet. In the Latin alphabet, the vowel letters are usually A, E, I, O, U, and in some languages Y, as in English and W, as in Welsh. There is necessarily not a direct one-to-one correspondence between the vowel sounds of a language and the vowel letters. Many languages that use a form of the Latin alphabet have more vowel sounds than ...

See also:

Vowel, Vowel - Articulation, Vowel - Height, Vowel - Backness, Vowel - Roundedness, Vowel - Nasalization, Vowel - Phonation, Vowel - Tongue root retraction, Vowel - Secondary narrowings in the vocal tract, Vowel - Tenseness/checked vowels vs. free vowels, Vowel - Acoustics, Vowel - Prosody and intonation, Vowel - Monophthongs diphthongs triphthongs, Vowel - Vowels in languages, Vowel - Vowel systems, Vowel - Written vowels, Vowel - Written vowels in writing systems

Read more here: » Vowel: Encyclopedia II - Vowel - Written vowels

The acoustics of vowels are fairly well-understood. The different vowel qualities are realized in acoustic analyses of vowels by the relative values of the formants, acoustic resonances of the vocal tract which show up as dark bands on a spectrogram. The vocal tract acts as a resonant cavity, and the position of the jaw, lips, and tongue affect the parameters of the resonant cavity, resulting in different formant values. The acoustics of vowels can be visualized using spectrograms, which display the acoustic energy at each frequen ...

See also:

Vowel, Vowel - Articulation, Vowel - Height, Vowel - Backness, Vowel - Roundedness, Vowel - Nasalization, Vowel - Phonation, Vowel - Tongue root retraction, Vowel - Secondary narrowings in the vocal tract, Vowel - Tenseness/checked vowels vs. free vowels, Vowel - Acoustics, Vowel - Prosody and intonation, Vowel - Monophthongs diphthongs triphthongs, Vowel - Vowels in languages, Vowel - Vowel systems, Vowel - Written vowels, Vowel - Written vowels in writing systems

Read more here: » Vowel: Encyclopedia II - Vowel - Acoustics

The features of vowel prosody are often described independently from vowel quality. In non-linear phonetics, they are located on parallel layers. The features of vowel prosody are usually considered not to apply to the vowel itself, but to the syllable, as some languages do not contrast vowel length separately from syllable length. Intonation encompasses the changes in pitch, intensity, and speed of an utterance over time. In tonal languages, in most cases the tone of a syllable is carried by the vowel, meaning that the relative pitch ...

See also:

Vowel, Vowel - Articulation, Vowel - Height, Vowel - Backness, Vowel - Roundedness, Vowel - Nasalization, Vowel - Phonation, Vowel - Tongue root retraction, Vowel - Secondary narrowings in the vocal tract, Vowel - Tenseness/checked vowels vs. free vowels, Vowel - Acoustics, Vowel - Prosody and intonation, Vowel - Monophthongs diphthongs triphthongs, Vowel - Vowels in languages, Vowel - Vowel systems, Vowel - Written vowels, Vowel - Written vowels in writing systems

Read more here: » Vowel: Encyclopedia II - Vowel - Prosody and intonation

A vowel sound whose quality doesn't change over the duration of the vowel is called a monophthong. Monophthongs are sometimes called "pure" or "stable" vowels. A vowel sound that glides from one quality to another is called a diphthong, and a vowel sound that glides between three qualities is a triphthong. All languages have monophthongs and many languages have diphthongs, but triphthongs or vowel sounds with even more target qualities are relatively rare cross-linguistically. English has all three types: the vowel sound in hit ...

See also:

Vowel, Vowel - Articulation, Vowel - Height, Vowel - Backness, Vowel - Roundedness, Vowel - Nasalization, Vowel - Phonation, Vowel - Tongue root retraction, Vowel - Secondary narrowings in the vocal tract, Vowel - Tenseness/checked vowels vs. free vowels, Vowel - Acoustics, Vowel - Prosody and intonation, Vowel - Monophthongs diphthongs triphthongs, Vowel - Vowels in languages, Vowel - Vowel systems, Vowel - Written vowels, Vowel - Written vowels in writing systems

Read more here: » Vowel: Encyclopedia II - Vowel - Monophthongs diphthongs triphthongs

The semantic significance of vowels varies widely depending on the language. In some languages, particularly Semitic languages, vowels mostly serve to denote inflections. This is similar to English man vs. men. In fact, the alphabets used to write the Semitic languages, such as the Hebrew alphabet and the Arabic alphabet, do not ordinarily mark all the vowels. These alphabets are called abjads. Although it is possible to construct simple English sentences that can be understood without written vowels (cn y rd ths?), extended pa ...

See also:

Vowel, Vowel - Articulation, Vowel - Height, Vowel - Backness, Vowel - Roundedness, Vowel - Nasalization, Vowel - Phonation, Vowel - Tongue root retraction, Vowel - Secondary narrowings in the vocal tract, Vowel - Tenseness/checked vowels vs. free vowels, Vowel - Acoustics, Vowel - Prosody and intonation, Vowel - Monophthongs diphthongs triphthongs, Vowel - Vowels in languages, Vowel - Vowel systems, Vowel - Written vowels, Vowel - Written vowels in writing systems

Read more here: » Vowel: Encyclopedia II - Vowel - Vowels in languages