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In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration.In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, for example in Arabic, Czech, Dravidian languages (such as Tamil), some Finno-Ugric languages (such as Finnish and Estonian), Japanese, Kyrgyz, Samoan ...
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. [1] Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (length).
When both length and tone are moraic, a tone diacritic may appear twice, as in [sáː̀] (falling tone on a long vowel). A morpheme may be reduced to length plus nasalization, in which case a word might be transcribed [saː̃]. If the length is morphemic, the morphemes would be /ː̀/ and /ː̃/.
The Scottish Vowel Length Rule affects all vowels except the always-short vowels 15 and 19 (/ɪ/ and /ʌ/) and, in many Modern Scots varieties, the always-long Scots-only vowels 8, 11, and 12 (here transcribed as /eː/, /iː/ and /ɔː/) that do not occur as phonemes separate from /e, i, ɔ/ in Scottish Standard English. [17]
The short vowels /ɛ, ʊ/ occur before /ŋ/ only in assimilated non-native words such as ginseng and Song (name of a Chinese dynasty) or non-finally in some dialects in words like strength and length as well as in varieties without the foot-strut split.
Usually, there is a pattern of even distribution of marks on the chart, a phenomenon that is known as vowel dispersion. For most languages, the vowel system is triangular. Only 10% of languages, including English, have a vowel diagram that is quadrilateral. Such a diagram is called a vowel quadrilateral or a vowel trapezium. [2]
Thus long ē (eta: η) can be understood as a sequence of two short vowels: ee. [5] Ancient Greek pitch accent is placed on only one mora in a word. An acute (έ, ή) represents high pitch on the only mora of a short vowel or the last mora of a long vowel (é, eé). A circumflex (ῆ) represents high pitch on the first mora of a long vowel (ée).
Except for the distinction still made by some speakers between /ɛ/ and /ɛː/ in rare minimal pairs like mettre [mɛtʁ] ('to put') vs. maître [mɛːtʁ] ('teacher'), variation in vowel length is entirely allophonic. Vowels can be lengthened in closed, stressed syllables, under the following two conditions: