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The word guttural literally means 'of the throat' (from Latin guttur, meaning throat), and was first used by phoneticians to describe the Hebrew glottal (א) and (ה), uvular (ח), and pharyngeal (ע). [4] The term is commonly used non-technically by English speakers to refer to sounds that subjectively appear harsh or grating.
Retracted vowels are one of three articulatory dimensions of vowel space. A retracted vowel is a vowel sound in which the body or root of the tongue is pulled backward and downward into the pharynx. The most retracted cardinal vowels are [ɑ ɒ], which are so far back that the epiglottis may press against the back pharyngeal wall, and [ʌ ɔ].
From an articulatory perspective, phonemes can be described as front or back. Front vowels refer to vowels articulated towards the front of the mouth. This can either refer to vowels that are more front than central or, more rarely, only to fully front vowels, i.e. the ones articulated as far forward as possible in the mouth.
Back vowels are sometimes also called dark vowels because they are perceived as sounding darker than the front vowels. [ 1 ] Near-back vowels are essentially a type of back vowels; no language is known to contrast back and near-back vowels based on backness alone.
Back mutation (sometimes back umlaut, guttural umlaut, u-umlaut, or velar umlaut) is a change that took place in late prehistoric Old English and caused short e, i and sometimes a to break into a diphthong (eo, io, ea respectively, similar to breaking) when a back vowel (u, o, ō, a) occurred in the following syllable. [24]
There are two complementary definitions of vowel, one phonetic and the other phonological.. In the phonetic definition, a vowel is a sound, such as the English "ah" / ɑː / or "oh" / oʊ /, produced with an open vocal tract; it is median (the air escapes along the middle of the tongue), oral (at least some of the airflow must escape through the mouth), frictionless and continuant. [4]
The vowels occur in five pairs that have differing vowel lengths (i.e. short vowels vs. long vowels). In the front and the mid back vowel pairs, the short vowels are phonetically lower than their long counterparts: /i/ → , /e/ → , /o/ → . The low vowels /a, aː/ vary between central and back articulations: [a~ɑ, aː~ɑː]. Vowels that ...
Within the chart “close”, “open”, “mid”, “front”, “central”, and “back” refer to the placement of the sound within the mouth. [3] At points where two sounds share an intersection, the left is unrounded, and the right is rounded which refers to the shape of the lips while making the sound. [4]