Roundedness
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- This article is concerned with roundedness in vowels. For roundedness in consonants, see Consonants.
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a rounded vowel. Vowel length is indicated by appending ː.
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 rounded and unrounded back vowels of the same height.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet vowel chart, rounded vowels are the ones that occur on the right in each pair of vowels. There are also diacritics, respectively ɔ̹ ɔ̜, to indicate greater or lesser degrees of rounding. The 'more' and 'less rounded' diacritics are sometimes also used with consonants to indicate degrees of labialization. (See relative articulation.)
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[edit] Types of rounding
There are two types of vowel rounding: endolabial,[1] typical of back rounded vowels such as [u] and [o], where the lips are projected forward and the channel between them is formed by their inner surfaces; and exolabial,[2] typical of front rounded vowels such as [y] and [ø], where the lips are vertically compressed and the channel is formed by their outer surfaces.[3].
In exolabial rounding, the corners of the mouth are drawn slightly together and the lips may be compressed horizontally, but the lips do not protrude and only their outer surface is exposed. In endolabial rounding, the lips protrude like a tube, as when kissing; the inner surface of the lips is exposed. Usually, back rounded vowels are endolabial, while front rounded vowels are exolabial. However, in Japanese, the back high vowel is exolabial. Standard Swedish is unusual in that it makes a phonemic distinction between the two types, having unrounded, endolabial, and exolabial front close-mid vowels. Some varieties of Dutch make the same distinction. There is no IPA diacritic to represent this contrast, and without clarification both the word "rounded" and the symbols for the rounded vowels are ambiguous.[4]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Endolabial: also called protruded, lip-pouting, horizontal lip-rounding, outrounding, and inner rounding (Trask 1996:180)
- ^ Exolabial: also called compressed, pursed, vertical lip-rounding, inrounding, or outer rounding (Trask 1996:252)
- ^ Henry Sweet noted in 1890 that "the term 'inner rounding' derives from the use of the inner surfaces of the lips; the synonymous 'outrounding' derives from the forward projection of the lips. Both terms are justifiable, but their coexistence is likely to lead to serious confusion." (Trask 1996:180.) The terms endolabial and exolabial are due to Catford. See also Ball & Gibbon 2002:51, and Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996:295.
- ^ When the IPA does not have a symbol for a phone or feature, the convention is to use the asterisk, thus [u*] for Japanese exolabial /u/, or [ʏ*] for Swedish endolabial /y/. However, this does not appear to have been used in the literature on rounding. Other possibilities include using <ʷ> for endolabial front vowels (Swedish [ʏʷ]) and <β> for exolabial back vowels (Japanese [ɯβ]).
[edit] References
- Ball, M. J. & Gibbon, F. E. (2002), Vowel Disorders.
- Ladefoged, P. & Maddieson, I. (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
- Trask, R. L. (1996), A dictionary of phonetics and phonology.
[edit] See also
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Look up unrounded, endolabial, or exolabial in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
