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Part of
Sonic Signatures: Studies dedicated to John Harris
Edited by Geoff Lindsey and Andrew Nevins
[Language Faculty and Beyond 14] 2017
► pp. 133–144

Charting the vowel space

| University College London

The vowel quadrilateral of the International Phonetic Association, couched entirely in articulatory terms, distorts in a number of ways the phonetic and phonological reality of the vowel space. It implies that cardinal vowels are articulatorily equidistant, which they are not. It is four-cornered, whereas acoustic and phonological evidence suggests a triangular space. It obscures the markedness relations of the vowels, so that its eight corner vowels are an unnatural set, including common and very rare vowels. A genuinely sound-based chart avoids these distortions and offers the possibility of an objectively standardized set of reference qualities.

Keywords: vowel space, vowel quadrilateral, vowel triangle, articulation, acoustics, cardinal vowels, reference qualities, markedness
Article outline
  • 1.The vowel sound space
  • 2.Sound space vs. tongue space
  • 3.An alternative reference vowel chart
  • 4.Phonological discussion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 30 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.14.c8
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