phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

and

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

, checked vowels are those that commonly stand in a stressed

closed syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological ...

; and free vowels are those that can stand in either a stressed closed syllable or a stressed

open syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological " ...

Usage

The terms ''checked vowel'' and ''free vowel'' originated in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

phonetics and phonology. They are seldom used for the description of other languages, even though a distinction between vowels that usually have to be followed by a consonant and other vowels is common in most

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...

. The terms ''checked vowel'' and ''free vowel'' correspond closely to the terms ''lax vowel'' and ''tense vowel'' respectively, but many linguists prefer to use the terms ''checked'' and ''free'', as there is no clearcut phonetic definition of vowel tenseness and because by most attempted definitions of tenseness and are considered lax, even though they behave in

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...

as free vowels. ''Checked vowels'' is also used to refer to a kind of very short glottalized vowels found in some

Zapotecan languages The Zapotecan languages are a group of related Oto-Manguean languages which descend from the common proto-Zapotecan language spoken by the Zapotec people during the era of the dominance of Monte Albán. The Zapotecan language group contains the ...

that contrast with laryngealized vowels. The term ''checked vowel'' is also used to refer to a short vowel followed by a

glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...

in Mixe, which has a distinction between two kinds of glottalized syllable nuclei: checked ones, with the glottal stop after a short vowel, and nuclei with rearticulated vowels, a long vowel with a glottal stop in the middle.

English

In English, the checked vowels are the following: * as in ''pit'' * as in ''pet'' * as in ''pat'' * as in ''pot'' (in varieties without the ''cot''-''caught'' merger or the ''father''–''bother'' merger) * as in ''put, foot'' * as in ''putt, strut'' There are a few exceptions, mostly in

interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...

s: ''eh'' with ; ''duh'', ''huh'', ''uh'', ''uh-uh'', and ''uh-huh'' with ; ''nah'' with or ; and ''yeah'' with (in accents that lack the diphthong ) or . There are also the

onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...

''baa'' for and the loanwords '' pho'' and '' pot-au-feu'' for when pronounced in

. The proper names ''

Graham Graham and Graeme may refer to: People * Graham (given name), an English-language given name * Graham (surname), an English-language surname * Graeme (surname), an English-language surname * Graham (musician) (born 1979), Burmese singer * Clan ...

'' and '' Flaherty'' are sometimes pronounced with a prevocalic . The free vowels are the following: * as in ''pee'' * as in ''pay'' * as in ''poo'' * as in ''Poe, no'' * as in ''paw, ball'' * as in ''bra'' * as in ''purr, burr'' * as in ''ply, buy'' * as in ''pow, bow'' * as in ''ploy, boy'' The

schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...

and rhotacized schwa are usually considered neither free nor checked because they cannot stand in stressed syllables. The term ''checked vowel'' is also useful in the description of English spelling. As free written vowels ''a'', ''e'', ''i'', ''o'', ''u'' correspond to the spoken vowels , , , , ; as checked vowels ''a'', ''e'', ''i'', ''o'', ''u'' correspond to , , , , . In spelling free and checked vowels are often called long and short, based on their historical pronunciation, though nowadays some or all of the free vowels are diphthongs, depending on the dialect, not long vowels as such. Written consonant doubling often shows the vowel is checked; the ''i'' of ''dinner'' corresponds to checked because of the double consonants ''nn''; the ''i'' of ''diner'' corresponds to free because of the single consonant ''n''. This, however, interferes with the differences in doubling rules between American and British styles of spelling, say ''travelled'' versus ''traveled''. Similarly, a " silent '' e''" following a single consonant at the end of a word often indicates that the preceding vowel is free where it would otherwise be checked; for example, the ''a'' of ''tap'' corresponding to whereas that in ''tape'' corresponds to .

References

{{reflist Vowels English phonology

Usage

English

See also

References