In
phonetics 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; and free vowels are those that can stand in either a stressed closed syllable or a stressed
open syllable.
Usage
The terms ''checked vowel'' and ''free vowel'' originated in
English 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 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
interjections: ''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 ''baa'' for and the loanwords ''
pho'' and ''
pot-au-feu'' for when pronounced 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 ...
. The proper names ''
Graham'' 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 .
See also
*
List of phonetics topics
*
Checked tone of Chinese
References
{{reflist
Vowels
English phonology