Describing a Sound With No Contact
Consonants involve contact. Vowels do not, so phoneticians describe them using three dimensions:
- Height: how close the tongue is to the roof of the mouth.
- Backness: how far forward or back the tongue is.
- Rounding: whether the lips are rounded.
Plotting height against backness gives the vowel quadrilateral.
Cardinal vowels
Daniel Jones devised the cardinal vowels as reference points around this space. They are not the vowels of any language. Instead, they provide a universal coordinate grid for transcribers.
The monophthongs of English
Standard British English is analysed with 12 monophthongs. English uses both vowel quality and duration to distinguish them.
Crucially, English vowels are substantially longer before voiced consonants than before voiceless ones.
Common pitfall: treating "long" and "short" as pure duration labels. Context heavily alters actual length.
Accents Diverge in the Vowels
Consonants vary little across accents. Major differences lie in vowel systems:
- The trap–bath split: southern British English uses different vowels in trap and bath. Northern England accents use the same vowel.
- The cot–caught merger: speakers in North America merge two vowels that stay distinct in RP.
- The foot–strut split: northern England retains one vowel where the south has two.
Each change affects the phonological system, not just isolated words.