 |
|
 |
 |
Glossary
Further sources |
Symbols used |
a |
b |
c |
d |
e |
f |
g |
h |
i |
j |
k |
l |
m |
n |
o |
p |
q |
r |
s |
t |
u |
v |
w |
x |
y |
z
- Further sources
- The references for further information are limited to three sources: (i) David
Crystal's An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages (Blackwell, 1992) (hereafter
EDLL), (ii) The Oxford Companion to the English Language, ed. Tom McArthur (Oxford, 1992)
(OCEL), and (iii) my American English Spelling (AES). EDLL and OCEL are arranged
alphabetically with headings the same as or close to those in this glossary. All three often contain
references to sources of further information.
- Symbols used
- Letters and spellings are enclosed in sharp arrowhead brackets: <a>,
<cat>. Sounds and pronunciations are enclosed in square brackets: [a], [kat].
Definitions are enclosed in double quotes. Prefixes are marked with lefthand flat angle brackets:
‹pre, ‹non; suffixes with right-hand: ing›, ed›. The sound schwa is
represented with [
 ]. The analyses, or explications, of written words are underlined, with
element boundaries marked with plus signs: catfish = cat+fish. A slash indicates that the
following letter is deleted, as in flaming = flam/e+ing. In phonetic respellings primary word
stress is indicated with a high vertical, secondary with a low vertical, and syllable boundaries that
have no stress marks are indicated with mid dots: [|fla·ming],
[|big|hed·id].
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A
- Analogy
- In the most general sense, the perception of similarity in the midst of difference. In
poetry it underlies metaphor. In spelling and vocabulary analogy leads to users changing the
sound or spelling of a word to make it more similar to a more regular or more familiar
form—as when French carriole is changed by folk etymology to carryall or Middle English
couthe, coude is respelled to could, making it more similar to the parallel forms should and would
(in Middle English scholde, wolde). Analogy is perhaps the most important way in which the
mind searches for unity in the din and roar of experience, linguistic and otherwise. (EDLL,
OCEL, AES 1.4 )
- Assimilation
- A historical process that simplifies pronunciation by changing one of two adjacent
sounds to make it more similar to the other. The spelling often then changes to agree with the
changed pronunciation. In English words assimilation is particularly common in consonants at the
ends of various Latin prefixes. In full assimilation the two sounds merge into one, though the
spelling does not always change: adjust is ‹ad+just› pronounced [
|just] with no change in the spelling, but the assimilation is reflected in the
spelling of affair ‹a/d+f+fair. A prefix may have different patterns of assimilation in
different settings. For instance, the bilabial sound [m] and its spelling <m> in the prefix
‹com- do not change in front of the bilabial sounds [b], [m], and [p], as in combine,
commit, and compel. But they assimilate fully before [l], [n], and [r], as in collect, connect,
correct. And most of the time they undergo partial assimilation, in which the change is only
partial, from [m] and <m> to [n] and <n>: concept, condemn, confess,
congest, conjure, etc. Assimilation is still with us: If you listen carefully, the word input is often
pronounced not [|in|p
 t] but rather
[|im|pt], with
assimilation of [n] to [m] before [p]. The OED and Webster's 3rd Unabridged even list the variant
spelling imput. (EDLL, OCEL, AES 10.1-10.10)
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B
- Base
- A word's base is the element that is its core of meaning, the part that can have
prefixes
and suffixes added to it: In uncounted the base is count. Bases like count that can stand free as
words are called free bases. Bases that cannot stand free as words, like +fect in affect,
confection, defective, effective, etc., are called bound bases. (OCEL, AES 2.2.2)
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C
- Caxton
- William Caxton (1422?-1491) established the first printing press in England and printed
the first dated book in England in 1477. Although he was concerned with the changeablity and
variability of English spelling, he had surprisingly little influence on the development of English
orthography. (OCEL)
- Cluster
- See Concatenation
- Closed syllable
- See Syllable
- Compound words
- A word that contains two or more words, such as popcorn pop+corn,
blackbird black+bird, congressman ‹co/m+n+gress+man.
- Concatenation
- In words, concatenation is the joining together of two
elements or of an
element and a particle. In the
explication of words concatenations are represented by + signs:
twin+s›, twin+n+ing›, twin/e+ing›. Strings of consonant letters that are
brought together in a concatenation are different from strings called clusters, in which the letters
in the string are all in the same element. Thus the <sl> string in sly is a cluster, sly, but
the <sl> string in thusly is a concatenation, thus+ly›. (AES 3.2.1)
- Consonant sounds
- English consonant sounds are usually categorized by place and manner of
articulation, as in the chart below. Columns indicate places of articulation in the mouth. Rows
indicate manner of articulation. Stops are articulated by stopping the flow of air and releasing it
suddenly. Fricatives are articulated with enough closure to produce friction. Affricates start with
a stop, end with a fricative: [j] = [dzh], [ch] = [tsh]. Nasals, liquids, and semivowels are
articulated smoothly, with no friction. In the chart below, in cases where a single set of square
brackets contains two sounds, the first of the two is
voiced, the second
unvoiced, or voiceless.
| |
Front |
Mid |
Back |
| Bilabial |
Labio-dental |
Inter-dental |
Alveolar |
Alveolar-palatal |
Palatal |
Velar |
Glottal |
| Stops and affricates |
[b, p]
bob, pop |
|
[d, t]
dad, tot |
[j, ch]
judge, church |
[g, k]
gag, kick |
|
| Fricatives |
|
[v, f]
vie, fie |
[th, th]
then, thin |
[z, s]
zip, sip |
[zh, sh]
azure, ashes |
|
[h]
hag |
| Nasals |
[m]
mom |
|
[n]
nun |
|
[ng]
rang |
|
| Liquids |
|
[l], [r]
lull, roar |
|
| Semivowels |
|
[y]
you |
[w]
woo |
(EDLL, OCEL, AES 11.1-11.1.2, 11.2.2, 11.3)
- Consonant letter
- A letter that spells a consonant sound. The nineteen letters that are always
consonants are <b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, x, z>. Three other letters are
sometimes consonants, sometimes vowels: <u, w, y>. The letter <u> is
usually a vowel, but it is a consonant when it spells the sound [w], as in language, pueblo, queen
and whenever it follows <q>, even if it does not spell [w], as in mosquito, unique.
Except for its use in the vowel digraphs <aw>, <ew>, and <ow>,
the letter <w> is a consonant, including in the digraphs <wh> and
<wr>>. And <y> is a consonant when it spells the sound [y], as in year and
beyond, always in syllable initial position; in other positions it is a vowel, as in gyp, type, lady,
rainy, mainly. (EDLL at Letter, OCEL at Letter, AES 11.2-11.3 )
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D
- Dental sound
- A consonant sound articulated with either the lower lip or the tip of the tongue
touching the teeth, as the labiodentals [v, f] and the interdentals [th, th]. (EDLL, OCEL, AES
26.1)
- Derivation, derived form
- A word formed usually by adding a prefix or derivational
suffix to a
stem word. A derivational suffix is basically any suffix that is not an inflection, though the
distinction gets fuzzy. Inflectional suffixes like those that mark verb tense and noun plurals are
clear enough. But whether those that mark, say, comparative and superlative adjectives (namely,
-er› and -est›) are inflectional or derivational is not so clear. To simplify things,
we will treat as inflections only those suffixes that mark noun plurals and verb tenses; all the rest
we treat as derivational. Thus the suffixes in paints and painted are inflectional; those in painter
and paintable are derivational. Repaint is an example of derivation via a prefix. In a few cases
the derivation involves neither prefix nor suffix, but a change in vowel or consonant: the noun
song from the verb sing, the noun speech from the verb speak. In dictionaries inflected forms are
usually listed towards the beginning of an entry, derived forms towards the end. (EDLL, OCEL,
AES 2.2.2)
- Digraph
- Two letters working together to spell a single
consonant sound or
vowel sound or
diphthong. The most common consonant digraphs are doublets like <bb> in cabbage,
<pp> in hippo, <tt> in lettuce, etc., doublet equivalents like <ck> in
stick and <dg> as in bridge, and the digraphs with <h>: <ch, gh, ph, sh,
th, wh>. Vowel digraphs are even more common: <ae, ai, au, aw, ay, ea, ee, ei,
ey>, etc. (EDLL, OCEL, AES 3.2.1, 11.2.2)
- Diphthong
- Two merged vowel sounds that are perceived as a single sound. Though in Old and
Middle English there were several diphthongs, today we normally recognize only two: [a]
as in howl and cow, and [
 i] as in boil and coy. Dictionaries sometimes represent
them as [ou] and [oi]. Technically, long [a], long
[e], and long [o] are sometimes pronounced as diphthongs, [ei], [ai], [o]. A
different kind of diphthong is the long [yu] as in
cute, contrasting with the simple long [u] in coot.
(EDLL, OCEL, AES 24.1-24.3.2)
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E
- Early Modern English
- English as it was spoken and written between roughly 1500 and 1700,
the language of Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton. (OCEL)
- Elements
- The smallest parts of written words that contribute meaning to the words. There are
four kinds of elements: prefixes, bound and free
bases, and suffixes. Elements are the written
language's equivalent of the spoken language's morphemes. (AES 2.1 - 2.5.2 )
- Explication
- The analysis of written words into their elements,
particles, and orthographic
procedures such as
twinning and
silent final <e> deletion, and processes such as
assimilation
and palatalization. (AES 2.1 - 2.8)
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F
- French influence
- The French language has influenced English in various ways. After the
Norman Conquest in the 11th century the official language in England for centuries was Norman
French. During that time hundreds of French words were adopted into English, and
Norman
scribes changed the spelling of several English words, making them more similar to French. Ever
since, English has continued to adopt French words, to change traditional spellings to make them
more like French, and to retain French spellings and pronunciations in certain words, especially
those dealing with high fashion, gourmet cooking, art, and wine. (OCEL)
- Frequentative verbs
- Verbs that indicate frequent, iterative, or repeated action. In English the
most common markers of frequentatives are the suffixes -le›1 (crumble, jiggle, twinkle)
and -er›3 (bicker, flutter, shatter). (EDLL at Iterative, OCEL at Iterative)
- Frictive
- A class of consonant sounds pronounced with enough friction to create a sibilant,
hissing, or buzzing quality. (EDLL, OCEL, AES 29.1 - 29.2.4.4, 30.1 - 30.5.3)
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G
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H
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I
- Inflection, inflected forms
- Words that have inflectional suffixes—that is, suffixes that
mark noun plurals (-s› as in cats, -es› as in the noun kisses, -en› as in
oxen, children) and verb tense and number (-s› and -es› as in the 3rd person
singular verbs counts and wishes, -ed› in the past tense verb or past participle counted,
and the present participle -ing› in counting). Cf.
Derivation. (EDLL, OCEL, AES 2.2.2)
- Intensifier
- A word or element that heightens the meaning of a word. The most common
intensifier is the adverb very. But the adverb in verb-adverb phrases is also often an intensifier.
For instance, to tear up something, or to tear it down, is more intense than simply to tear it. To
burn something down or up is more intense than simply to burn it. Some Latinate prefixes serve
an intensifying function—for example, ‹re- in resent and reward and more often
‹com-, as in accomplish, complete, comfort, combustion, command, etc. The native
English prefix ‹be- also often has an intensive force, as in begrudge, besmirch, bemuse.
(EDLL, OCEL)
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J
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K
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L
- Lengthening
- The process whereby short vowels develop into
long vowels. In their development
into Middle English, certain Old English short vowels lengthened before certain consonants,
especially <i> and <o> before <mb>, <ld>, and
<nd>, thus comb, climb, gold, wild, bind, grind with long vowels. Also, Old English
short vowels in open syllables tended to lengthen, which underlies the modern
VCV/VCCV
contrast: In the VCV string the first syllable will be open and have a long vowel (cater
[|ka·tr]),
while in the VCCV string it will be closed with a short vowel (canter
[|kan·tr]). (AES 4.3.2)
- Long vowels
- In Old and Middle English the distinction between long and short vowels was
based on quantity not quality—that is, long vowels had the same sound quality as did their
short partner, but they were sustained. That is, they were literally longer. In Modern English,
however, the distinction is no longer simply a matter of phonology; it is also an orthographic
distinction. It has become a distinction of quality rather than quantity. So short [a] is not literally
shorter than long [a]; it just has a different sound
quality. The short and long vowel pairs usually recognized in Modern English are the following:
| Short Vowels |
|
Long Vowels |
|
[a], pat
[e], pet
[i], pit
[o], pot
[u], puck
[], push
|
|
[a], bait
[e], beet
[i], bite
[o], boat
[u], coot
[yu], cute
|
There are two other vowels very similar in quality to short [o]: the dotted <o> sound,
[], that is exemplified in some dialects by words such as caught and stalk, in contrast
with the [o] in cot and stock, and the [ä] in father. In general, dictionaries do not always
agree in their treatment of low back vowels like [o], [], and
[ä], and there tends to be considerable differences among different dialects of American
English. (EDLL at Vowel, Length; OCEL at Vowel, Vowel Quantity, Long and Short; AES 11.1.1
- 11.1.2, 11.3)
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M
- Middle English
- English as it was spoken and written from roughly 1100 to 1500, the language
of Chaucer. It differs significantly from Old English in its syntax and vocabulary, including its
spelling, in large part because of French influence. It also differs significantly from Modern
English, enough so that the typical reader of Chaucer must spend much time amidst the footnotes.
(EDLL at English, OCEL at Middle English)
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N
- Norman Conquest
- The defeat of the English by the Normans in 1066. The Norman French
descended from Norsemen who earlier had invaded and settled northern France, adopting the
French language and much of its culture. The Conquest led to centuries of French dominance in
England—politically, legally, culturally, and linguistically. (OCEL at Norman and Norman
French)
- Norman scribes
- The scribes and clerks who did most of the writing of English after the
Norman Conquest. Very few of them were native speakers of English. All were trained in
French and Latin. They introduced several Continental spelling practices into English: for
instance, the use of <qu> to spell [kw], thus changing native English cwen to queen; the use of <v> to spell [v],
thus changing earlier cnifas to knives. (OCEL at Scribe, AES passim)
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O
- OED
- The Oxford English Dictionary (originally called The New English Dictionary on
Historical Principles), the most extensive dictionary of English and probably of any language. It
traces the changing spellings and meanings of words from 1000 A.D., or their earliest known
appearance in English, to the present. Work on it started in the mid 19th century. Its 1st edition
(1928) was 12 large volumes plus supplements; its 2nd edition (1989) is 20 large volumes. It is
also available on CD-ROM and on-line at oed.com. (OCEL)
- Old English
- English as it was spoken and written from roughly the mid 5th to the early 12th
century. Also called Anglo-Saxon, it developed from the languages of the Germanic Angles and
Saxons, who migrated to Britain from northern Europe. It is the language of Beowulf and of King
Alfred and is for the most part quite unintelligible to speakers of Modern English. (EDLL at
English, OCEL at Old English)
- Open syllable
- See Syllable
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P
- Palatal
- A consonant sound pronounced entirely or partially back against the hard palate. Used
loosely, palatal can include the alveolar-palatals [j, ch, zh, sh] and the palatals [g, k, ng, y].
(EDLL at Palate and Palato-alveolar, OCEL at Palate, AES 30.1 - 30.5.3)
- Palatalization
- A process that occurs when a
consonant sound normally articulated towards the
front of the mouth is moved back to the palate. For instance, in the word native the <t>
spells the alveolar sound [t]; in the related nation it spells the alveolar-palatal [sh]. Palatalization
accounts for several different spellings of [sh], [zh], [ch], and [j]: [sh] in nation, dimension,
passion, conscience, ancient; [zh] in collision, usual, seizure, equation; [ch] in mutual, fortune,
century; [j] in graduate, schedule. The subpatterns are complex but most often a palatalized
spelling occurs before two unstressed vowels, the first of which is most often <i>, less often <u>.
Palatalization is sometimes called assibilation since it results in a sibilant, or hissing, sound.
(EDLL at Palate and Palato-alveolar, OCEL at Palate, AES 30.1 - 30.5.3)
- Particles
- A word part, usually a single letter, that does not add meaning to the word but does
perform other functions. The two main types are (i) the linking <o>'s and
<i>'s in words that are entirely or partially from Greek and Latin (speedometer
speed+o+meter, philosophy phil+o+soph+y, biology bi+o+log+y, agriculture agr+i+cult+ure,
architect arch+i+tect, and (ii) the consonants inserted in cases of
twinning, like the second <n> in twinning twin+n+ing. (AES 2.4 - 2.4.1)
- Partridge
- Eric Partridge (1894-1979), a New Zealander who moved to England and spent most
of his adult life writing books and dictionaries of English slang, usage, and etymology. His
Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary (1958) is particularly useful. (OCEL)
- Prefix
- A bound element that is affixed in front of bases. The most clear-cut prefixes carry a
prepositional or negative meaning. Among the prepositional are ‹anti-, ‹ad- "to,
toward," ‹epi-, ‹ex-, ‹in-2 "in", ‹ob-,‹ pre-, etc. Among
the negatives are ‹a-1, ‹in-2, ‹non-, ‹un-. The distinction between
prefixes and bound bases is a fuzzy one: Many elements are classified as prefixes in some
dictionaries and as bound bases in others. (EDLL at Affix, OCEL, AES 2.2.2)
- Procedures
- Actions taken when elements combine to form words. The most common procedure
is simple addition, by which elements simply add together with no change in spelling, as in
‹re+paint+ed› and ‹un+stead+y›. Two other common procedures
are twinning and
silent final <e> deletion.
- Processes
- Historical changes in pronunciation that affect modern sound-to-spelling
correspondences. The two most important are assimilation and
palatalization.
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Q
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R
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S
- Schwa
- The unstressed, reduced vowel [] that sounds like
an unstressed short <u>. Most American English unstressed vowels reduce to schwa or
to a weak [i] or to something in between. The Merriam-Webster dictionaries use a dotted schwa
to represent this range of reductions. Schwa is particularly difficult for spellers because of all of
the different ways it can be spelled, as shown by the boldface spellings below:
|
abridge
hallelujah
mountain
epaulet
emergency
|
sergeant
bureaucrat
sovereign
luncheon
righteous
|
cabinet
parliament
patient
anxious
nasturtium
|
obscure
tortoise
miraculous
calculus
oxygen
|
(EDLL at Shwa, OCEL)
- Short vowels
- See Long Vowels
- Shortening rules
- A set of rules that explain why first vowels in some
VCV strings are short.
The most important of these are the following:
(i) The Third Syllable (or Vowel) Rule: The vowel in the third or fourth syllable from the end of a
word, if stressed, will be short, as in general, solitude, holiday, etc.
(ii) The Suffix -ity› Rule: The vowel preceding the suffix -ity› will regularly be
stressed and short, as in sanity, sublimity, timidity, etc.
(iii) The Suffix-ic› Rule: The vowel preceding the suffix -ic› will regularly be
stressed and short, as in athletic, theatric, cosmetic, melodic, tonic, etc. (AES 5.1 - 5.8, 6.4.1 -
6.4.3.1, 7.1 - 7.5)
- Silent final <e> deletion
- A procedure affecting the
treatment of silent final <e> when adding suffixes. In words with silent final <e>'s that
mark a soft <c> or <g>, the final <e>'s are regularly deleted only
when adding suffixes that start with <e>, <i>, or <y>. Thus, we
have ice, ic/e+ed›, ic/e+ing›, ic/e+y› and sponge, spong/e+ed›,
spong/e+ing›, spong/e+y›. However, we also have manage man4+age›,
man4+ag/e›+ed›, man4+ag/e›+ing›, but
man4+age›+able›, and efface ‹e/x+f+face1,
‹e/x+f+fac/e1+ed›, ‹e/x+f+fac/e1+ing› but
‹e/x+f+face1+able›. All other silent final <e>'s are regularly deleted
when adding suffixes that start with any vowel. In words ending with a vowel followed by a final
<e>, the final <e> is usually deleted: bluest, canoed, subduing, etc. But in the
following very few cases there is no deletion: Words ending <ee> taking suffixes that
start with <i> or <a> (as in seeing, agreeable); words ending with
<oe> taking suffixes that start with <i> (as in toeing, canoeist); words ending
with <ue> taking suffixes that start with <y> (gluey, but notice gluier). (AES
8.1 - 8.5)
- Simple addition
- See Procedures
- Soft and hard <c> and <g>
- The letter <c> is soft—that
is, spells the sound [s]—before <e>, <i>, and <y>, as in
laced, lacing, lacy. Before any other vowel or consonant it is hard, spelling the sound [k], as in
cad, cod, cup, clamp, cramp. Less reliably, the letter <g> is usually soft, spelling the
sound [j] before <e>, <i>, and <y>, as in gem, giblet, gypsum.
Before any other vowel or consonant it is hard, spelling the sound [g], as in gap, gob, gum, glue,
agree. In some common words from Scandinavian, such as give and get the <g> is hard
where we would expect it to be soft.
- Spelling pronunciation
- Changing an earlier pronunciation to one that comes closer to
representing the current spelling: for instance, pronouncing often with a [t], again with a long
[a], burial with [r] rather
than [er], forehead with [h]. (EDLL, OCEL, AES 1.5.4.1)
- Suffix
- A bound element that comes after a
base. Cf. Derivation and
Inflection. (EDLL at Affix,
OCEL, AES 2.2.2)
- Suffix -ic› Rule
- See Shortening Rules
- Suffix -ity› Rule
- See Shortening Rules
- Syllabic Consonant
- A consonant that can form the peak of sound within a syllable. The syllabic
consonants are [l], [m], [n], [r]. Syllabic consonants usually occur at the end of words, as in
button [|but·n], gentle [|jen·tl]. In some
cases dictionaries show a schwa sound, though often, especially in informal speech, the only
sound is that of the consonant, as in rhythm [|rith·m] or
[|rith·m] or even [|rith·m]. (OCEL,
AES )
- Syllable
- In the spoken language a peak of sound, consisting of either a
vowel or a
syllabic
consonant, plus any preceding or following consonants that are attached to it. Open syllables end
in a vowel sound, closed syllables in a consonant sound. Spoken syllables are represented in a
dictionary's phonetic respellings. But dictionaries also divide entry words into written syllables to
indicate preferred points of division on the printed page. These written and spoken syllables may
agree with one another, but not always, as in loutish: lout·ish vs. [|la
·tish]. (EDLL, OCEL, AES 2.7.3 - 2.7.4.1)
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T
- Third Syllable (or Vowel) Rule
- See Shortening Rules
- Twinning
- The procedure in which the final consonants of words that end with a single vowel
letter followed by a final single consonant letter double, or twin, the final consonant when adding
a suffix that starts with a vowel, as in twinning twin+n+ing›. Twinning occurs only if
stress is on the syllable with the final consonant both before and after the suffix is
added—thus, referred with twinning, but reference without. Twinning avoids a
VCV
string that would cause the first vowel to look long: via
simple addition twin+ing would produce
<twining>, as if the word were derived from twine with long [i] rather than from twin with short [i]. Instead, twinning produces
a VCCV string, thus marking the first <i> as short. (AES 9.1-9.6)
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U
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V
- VCV vs. VCCV strings
- A VCV string consists of a single vowel letter spelling a stressed
vowel sound, followed by a single consonant letter and another single vowel letter; a VCCV
string consists of a single vowel letter spelling a stressed vowel sound followed by two consonant
letters and a single vowel letter. The first vowels in VCV strings are regularly long, coming as
they do in open syllables, while those in a VCCV string, coming in a closed syllable, are regularly
short. (AES 4.1 - 4.3.4.2)
- Velar
- A consonant sound articulated with the back of the tongue against the soft palate, or
velum. In English the velars are [g], [k], and [ng]. (EDLL, OCEL at Velum, AES 27.1 -
27.3.3.14, 31.4 - 31.4.4)
- Voiced vs. voiceless (unvoiced) sounds
- Voiced sounds are pronounced with the vocal chords
vibrating; voiceless, or unvoiced, sounds are pronounced with no vibration.
Vowel sounds are
always voiced, as are the consonant sounds [m], [n], [ng], [l], [r], [w], and [y]. The other ten
consonant sounds come in five voiced-voiceless pairs—that is, two sounds that are exactly
the same except that one is voiced, the other voiceless. In the following sets the first is voiced, the
second voiceless: [b, p], [d, t], [g, k], [sh, zh], [ch, j]. (EDLL at Voicing, OCEL at Voice, AES
3.2.2 - 3.2.2.2)
- Vowel letter
- A letter that spells a vowel sound. In English <a>, <e>,
<i>, and <o> are always vowels. But <u>, <w>, and
<y> have historically served, and still serve, double duty—sometimes vowel,
sometimes consonant. For details see Consonant letters. (OCEL, AES 11.2 - 11.3)
- Vowel sounds
- English vowels are usually displayed on a chart whose rows indicate the tongue's
position relative to the roof of the mouth (high, mid, low) and whose columns indicate the part of
the tongue that is raised (front, central, back). The simple vowels recognized in our analysis are
as follows:
|
Front |
Central |
Back |
| High |
[i] beet
[i] bit
|
|
[u] boot
[] book
|
| Mid |
[a] bait
[e] bet
|
[u] but
[] a(vove)
|
[o] boat |
| Low |
[a] bat |
|
[ä] bother
[o] cot
[] caught
|
There is a second long <u> recognized in our analysis: [yu], as in cute, contrasting with [u] in coot. It is essentially a
diphthong. (EDLL, OCEL, AES 11.1 - 11.1.2,
11.3 )
- back to top
W
- back to top
X
- back to top
Y
- back to top
Z
|
|
|
