Salahaddin University – Erbil

College of Languages
Department of English
Phonetics and Phonology

The Description and Classification of

Vowel Sounds

By: Hekmat Haseeb Qader

Lecturer: Prof. Abbas Fadhil Lutfi
Vowel Sounds
 A vowel is a speech sound that is produced without friction in the vocal tract and with the vocal
cord vibrating during pronunciation.
 Since there are no restrictions, the lips, teeth, and tongue do not come into contact with one
another while pronouncing the vowel sound.
 According to RP (Received Pronunciation), we have 20 or 21 vowel sounds:
/i:/ peat /u:/ fool /iə/ pier
/ɪ/ pit /3:/ furl /ɛə/ pear
/e/ pet /eɪ/ fail / ɔə/ pour
/æ/ pat /əʊ/ foal /ʊə/ poor
/ʌ/ putt /ai/ file /ə/ banana
/a:/ part /au/ foul
/ɔ/ pot /oɪ/ foil
/ɔː/ port
/ʊ/ put
 Types of Vowel Sounds

1. Monophthongs: These are pure vowel sounds produced with a

steady and unchanging articulation. Examples include the vowel
sounds in words like bit, and cat.
2. Diphthongs: They involve a glide or movement from one vowel to
another within a single syllable. Examples include the vowel sounds in
words like "boy," "coin," and "loud."
3. Schwa /ə/ : The schwa is a reduced vowel sound often pronounced
as a weak, unstressed "uh" sound. It is the most common vowel sound
in English and can be found in unstressed syllables. Examples include
the schwa sound in words like "about," "banana," and "mother.“
4. A Triphthong is a kind of vowel sound that consists of combination
of three vowels in a single syllable. Unlike diphthongs, which consist
of two vowel sounds, triphthongs consist of three distinct vowel
sounds that change in quality and glide smoothly from one to another
within the same syllable. In English, examples of triphthongs include
the sounds /aɪə/ as in fire, /aʊə/ as in hour, and /jʊə/ as in cure.

5. TENSE VOWELS are produced with a general tension of the

speech muscles.

6.LAX VOWELS are produced with a more relaxed speech muscle

movement.
 Classification of Vowel Sounds
 There is significant variation in the number and realization of vowel
phonemes.

 RP, for example, has twenty or twenty-one vowel phonemes, including

monophthongs and diphthongs.

 The phoneme /ə/ (schwa) is notable for being the most frequent RP vowel,
occurring only in unstressed syllables e.g. adorn /ə'dɔːn/.

 It is almost possible in RP to consider [ə] as an allophone of /ʌ/; most

occurrences of /ʌ/ are exclusively in stressed syllables, e.g. comfort /'kʌmfot/,
except in some few cases, e.g. hiccough /ˈhɪk.ʌp/, uphold /ʌpˈhəʊld/, etc.
Vowels are classified according to:
1. Tongue height (Vertical classification): Open, half-open, half-close, and close, or
we can say (high – to – low) position in the mouth:
 High vowels: Produced with the tongue high in the mouth. [i, ɪ, u, ʊ]
 Mid vowels: Produced with the tongue in the middle of the mouth. [e, ә, ʌ, o, ɔ, ɔɪ]
 Low vowels: Produced with the tongue low in the mouth. [æ, ɑ, aɪ, aʊ].
2. Tongue position (Horizontal classification): Front, central,
and back or we can say (front – to – back) position in the
mouth:
 Front vowels: Produced with the tongue in the front of the
mouth. [i, ɪ, e, æ].
 Central vowels: Produced with the tongue in the center of
the mouth. [ə, aɪ, aʊ].
 Back vowels: Produced with the tongue in the back of the
mouth. [ʌ, ɑ, ɔ, u, ʊ, ɔɪ].

3. Lips shape: Rounded, spread, and neutral.

https://www.linguisticsweb.org/doku.php?id=linguisticsweb:glossary:vowels
1. /i:/ Front, close, spread
 /i:/ Is realized as being a slight
diphthong in RP, though it is also
realized as a monophthongal vowel
sound. Examples: see, unique, and
receive

2. /ɪ/ Front (nearer to the center), close (above the half-close),

slightly spread
 RP realizes /ɪ/ as being short and
monophthongal.
e.g. village /ˈvɪl.ɪdʒ/
3. /e/ Front, between half-close and half-open,
slightly spread
 In RP /e/ is generally realized, in set, meant, many, etc., as a short, front vowel
between cardinals [e] and [ɛ].
4. /æ/ Front, below half-open, slightly spread
 /æ/, as in pat, plait, cash, is realized in
RP as a short vowel between cardinal [e]
and cardinal [a].
 Generally it is monophthongal but there
may be a diphthongal glide from that
position to a more central one.

5. /ʌ/ Central, open, neutral

 In RP, /ʌ/ as in bus, come, rough is
generally realized as a short almost
open central vowel
6. /a:/ Back, Open, Neutral
 The vowel /a:/ of half, part, pass in RP
is an open, rather back vowel and it is
relatively long.

7. /ɒ/ Back, open or between open and half-open, rounded

 In RP this is realized as a short,
back, open or almost-open
vowel, e.g. pot, what, cost.
8. /ɔː/ Back, below half-close, rounded
 This is realized in RP in words such as caught, port,
talk as a long monophthong just below cardinal [o]
 It is not often separate from /ɔə/.
 Many speakers use a diphthong /ɔə/ before pause
such as saw and sore.

9. /ʊ/ Nearer to central, half-close, rounded

 RP /ʊ/ is realized in, e.g. wood, could, put as

somewhat more central and closer than cardinal
[o].
10. /u:/ Back, close, rounded
 In RP, /u:/ most often has a diphthongal
realization, but it may be given a
monophthongal pronunciation slightly
lower and more central than cardinal [u].

11. /3:/ Central, between half-close

and half-open, neutral
 In RP the /3:/, e.g. bird, hearse,
word, is typically a long, mid,
central vowel.
12. /ə/ Final: Central, Half-open
Non-final: Central, Half-close
 the commonest English vowel phoneme for the reason
that it has replaced many other vowels over the
centuries, e.g. / ɒ / in contain /kən'tein/, /æ/ in
postman /'pəustmən/ etc., and the process is still alive
in the sense that words such as and, can, of, at
typically have /ə/ when they are unstressed.
 There are two major allophones in RP:
1. Central and about half-close which occurs in non-
final positions, e.g. in about and callous.
2. Central and about half-open which occurs before
pause (final), e.g. in sailor, sofa.
13. /eɪ/
 In RP this is generally realized as a diphthong
moving from a position between cardinals [e]
and [ɛ] to a typical RP [i] position, e.g. day,
late, vein.
 The change of quality is not very great but
usually perceptible.

14. /əʊ/
 The most common RP realization of this
phoneme in words such as go, dough, coat is
probably a diphthong starting at a typical RP
[3:] position, i.e. mid-central, and moving
slightly up and back to RP [u]
15. /ai/
 This diphthong in words like buy, fine, sight, etc. has a realization in RP with an open
or almost open beginning point which varies from central to front and moves
towards RP [i].
 In fire, fiery, etc., the realization is often monophthongal, with the quality of the
diphthong’s starting point.
16. /aʊ/
 In RP, words such as now, drought, fowl have a
diphthong which begins somewhat further back than
for /ai/ and changes towards RP [u].
 In words such as shower, showery, the realization may be
monophthongal with the quality of the diphthong’s
beginning point and this may lead to confusion with /a:/;
showery and starry are exact rhymes in such
pronunciations, which are not uncommon but fiery, even
with its monophthongal pronunciation, will be
distinguished from them by its fronter quality
17. /ɔɪ/
 In words like boy, join, voice, RP has a diphthong
which starts around cardinal [o] and moves towards [i].
 18. /ɪə/
 There are two main allophones of /ɪə/ in
RP, corresponding to those of /ə/.
 Before pause, as in fear, idea the endpoint
of the glide is a half-open central vowel,
and elsewhere, e.g. fierce, really, it is
somewhat closer than this.
 In both cases, the beginning point is about
as for RP[i].
 Before /r/, as in weary, fearing, there is
often no perceptible diphthongization, but
rather a long monophthong of [i] quality,
compare fear and fearing.
19. /ɛə/

 In words like scare and scarce, RP employs a

diphthong for the vowel sound. The diphthong
begins at or below [ɛ] and moves to a more
central but equally open position.
 Before /r/, as in "vary" or "wearing," a
monophthongal allophone is frequent, matching
the starting point of the diphthong.
20. /ɔə/
 As mentioned earlier /ɔə/ as an independent phoneme,
differentiating pour from paw /po:/, is quite rare in RP.
It occurs in ‘r’- words like pour, score whereas /o:/ occurs
in non-‘r’-words such as paw, saw, but /ɔə/ does not
necessarily occur in all ‘r’-words; the only place where /ɔə/
is regularly distinguished from /o:/, even by those few who
make the distinction is before pause, so it is quite unusual,
though not unheard of, for caught and court to be
distinguished on this basis in RP.

21. /ʊə/
 This occurs in RP in words like lure, endure
and is realized as a diphthong changing
from the normal [u] quality to a central and
more open position
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