15 vowel phonemes of standard American English

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

To pronounce English words correctly, we should follow the practice of linguists: the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The key to the IPA is to make sure that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the phonetic characters and the sounds. The first version of the IPA was created in 1888, and it has been revised ever since. 

 

Rhotic R

In light of the phonetic representation of American English, the symbolization of the rhotic R should be interesting. The standard American pronunciation is rhotic. ‘Rhotic’ means the letter R is always pronounced whenever there is an R in the spelling. The word ‘rhotic’ comes from the Greek letter ‘rho,’ as Greek letters are often used for phonetic representation. The standard British English, spoken by Londeners, is non-rhotic. British people pronounce the letter R only when it is the beginning sound in a syllable as in rice, ramen, and bright. If R occurs after a vowel in a syllable, it is not pronounced. Interestingly, British sometimes use the R sound to connect two vowel sounds, like ‘the idea-r-of-it.” This use of /r/ is called the intrusive R. This use of /r/ is viewed as non-standard pronunciation in America. 

 

R-colored vowels 

The rhotic R phenomenon is commonly called the r-colored or r-controlled vowel. American English has many r-colored vowels: ER, AR, UR, OR, AIR, EAR, IRE, AUR. The vowels can be found in these words:

 

ER (/ər/) as in butter, color, stir, occur

AR (/ɑr/) as in car, star 

UR (/ʊər/) as in sure, tour, pure

OR (/ɔr/) as in orange, chore, order

AIR (/eər/) as in air, stair, bear, care, chair 

EAR (/ɪər/) as in beer, year, steer

IRE (/aɪər/) as in fire, tire 

AUR (/aʊər/) as in sour, hour, flower

 

Notations of r-colored vowels

These vowels are called r-colored because the R after a vowel in a syllable changes the quality of the vowel sound. For example, consider the words ‘lodge’ and ‘large’ both of which have the /ɑ/ sound. But their vowel quality is different between ‘lodge’ and ‘large.’ To say ‘lodge’, the tongue is flat. But to say ‘large,’ the tip of the tongue has to be turned backward. That is, to pronounce the ‘r’ sound in ‘large’ the vowel sound has to be modified. American linguists have tried to implement this fact into the IPA. Examples are the hook addition like ɚ, ɑ˞, ɔ˞, or the superscript turned ‘r,’ ‘ɹ’ in əʴ, ɑʴ, ɔʴ. In this course, however, we do not use these special notations and use the same vowel phonemes notation for both r-colored vowels and vowels without the R sound since we are learning American English. That is, the difference in vowel quality is predictable, and thus there is no problem using the same symbol in both cases.

American vowels

15 vowel phonemes of standard American English

A phoneme is a unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular language. So if we use the wrong phonemes while speaking, we’ll be misunderstood. Naturally, to pronounce words correctly, we need to learn the phonemes of English. Thanks to the merger phenomena of standard American English, there are just 10 distinct pure vowel phonemes in American English. They are 

 

/i/, /ɪ/, /ɛ/, /æ/, /u/, /ʊ/, /ɔ/, /ɑ/, /ə/ and /ʌ/. 

 

Regarding /ə/ and /ʌ/, they differ in stress rather than in sound. That is, the schwa is used for the unstressed /ʌ/ sound. So one could argue that there are just 9 pure vowel phoneme sounds, but in this book we separate them since schwa is a special vowel used for de-emphasis. Also, while /ɔ/ is disappearing due to the cot-caught merger, we list it as an independent phoneme. While /ɔ/ does not occur as a pure sound, it does occur as an r-colored vowel or as part of a diphthong (two vowel sounds). 


Monophthongs

The 10 vowel phonemes (/i/, /ɪ/, /ɛ/, /æ/, /u/, /ʊ/, /ɔ/, /ɑ/, /ə/ and /ʌ/) are called pure vowels or monophthongs (one vowel sound). When we produce monophthongs, the tongue stays in the same position even if we prolong the sound. For example, when we say /æ/ as in ‘bad,’ the tongue position and the quality of the vowel stay constant throughout the production, even if we continue to say the vowel for a long time. 

  

   Diphthongs

But English has vowels that have two sounds in a phoneme. For example, when we say /eɪ/ as in day, our tongue moves just a bit, from the position of /e/ to the position of /ɪ/. /e/ is similar to /ɛ/, except that the tongue is a little higher for /e/. Vowels of this type are called diphthongs as they have two perceived auditory qualities. Diphthongs, despite having two vowel sounds within, are single phonemes. That is, they make one syllable because the vowel sounds in diphthongs are unsegmentable. To produce diphthongs, we need to glide continuously from one sound to another sound. We don’t say /de.ɪ/, but /deɪ/. Knowing this fact is especially important when counting the number of syllables of words. 

 

British diphthongs

British English has many diphthongs and even triphthongs. Triphthongs contain three vowel sounds in a phoneme, like /aʊə/. These are examples of British diphthongs: 

 

/ɪə/ as in deer, beer

/eə/ as in fair, care

/ʊə/ as in poor, tour

/eɪ/ as in they, play

/aɪ/ as in idea, light 

/ɔɪ/ as in boy, join

/oʊ/ as in show, go

/aʊ/ as in sound, how

 

American diphthongs

American English has fewer diphthongs due to its rhotic nature. That is, the /ə/ in the first three diphthongs are not viewed as diphthongs in America since the schwa is included due to the letter R, which sounds /ər/. That is, the first three occur only when the letter R is followed. With this in mind, we can say that there are 5 diphthong sounds in American English: /eɪ/, /aɪ/, /ɔɪ/, /oʊ/ and /aʊ/. So, when we consider monophthongs and diphthongs together, we can say that there are 15 vowel phonemes in standard American English.




Comments