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Otense & Lax Vowels in American English

NOTES ON TENSE AND LAX VOWELS IN AMERICAN ENGLISH

The traditional notion of vowel tension

Tense refers to the overall muscular effort used in producing a sound. A tense or fortis sound is produced with a relatively strong muscular effort; it involves a greater movement of the upper vocal tract away from the position of rest, and a relatively strong speed of acoustic energy (e.g. high front and high back vowels). Conversely, a lax or lenis sound is produced with less muscular effort and movement, and is relatively short and indistinct (e.g. centralized vowels).

Tense and lax vowel sets exhibit phonetic differences which are likely to depend on the different kinds of syllables in which they occur--for example, closed syllables (which have a consonant at the end) and open syllables (which do not have a consonant at the end). Nevertheless, there are a number of situations where English deviates from this mechanism. For example, the ing sound, as in sing, has a quality in-between that of [i] and [I]; and that which occurs in here in most forms of American English is also intermediate [i] and [I] (Ladefoged, 1993, p. 269).

Even though historically quantity equated with tension, tense and lax are now more likely to be viewed as qualitative aspects of vowel quantity, and as terms in phonetics and poetics referring to the length of a vowel--long or short (terms which some phonologists still distinguish from tense and lax). The measurable duration of vowels depends also on at least two other factors: (1) Vowel Height, in terms of position of the tongue. Open vowels as in ban /ban/ or balm /bam/ are longer than closed vowels as in bin /bIn/ or beam /bim/. (2) Environment, in terms of preceding and following sounds. Vowels are shortened before some consonants and lengthened before others. If a vowel has sufficient duration, as in have /hav/, there is time for the organs that form it to move into their target positions and remain there...

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Otense & Lax Vowels in American English. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 12:52, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1700130.html