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In
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. ...
, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the
lip The lips are the visible body part at the mouth of many animals, including humans. Lips are soft, movable, and serve as the opening for food intake and in the articulation of sound and speech. Human lips are a tactile sensory organ, and can be ...
s during the articulation of a
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
. It is
labialization Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...
of a vowel. When a ''rounded'' vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and ''unrounded'' vowels are pronounced with the lips relaxed. In most languages,
front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...
s tend to be unrounded, and
back vowel A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be c ...
s tend to be rounded. However, some languages, such as French,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
and Icelandic, distinguish rounded and unrounded front vowels of the same
height Height is measure of vertical distance, either vertical extent (how "tall" something or someone is) or vertical position (how "high" a point is). For example, "The height of that building is 50 m" or "The height of an airplane in-flight is abou ...
(degree of openness), and
Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...
distinguishes rounded and unrounded back vowels of the same height. Alekano has only unrounded vowels. In the
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
vowel chart, rounded vowels are the ones that appear on the right in each pair of vowels. There are also diacritics, and , to indicate greater and lesser degrees of rounding, respectively. Thus has less rounding than cardinal , and has more (closer to the rounding of cardinal ). These diacritics can also be used with unrounded vowels: is more spread than cardinal , and is less spread than cardinal .


Types of rounding

There are two types of vowel rounding: ''protrusion'' and ''compression''. In protruded rounding, the corners of the mouth are drawn together and the lips protrude like a tube, with their inner surface visible. In compressed rounding, the corners of the mouth are drawn together, but the lips are also drawn together horizontally ("compressed") and do not protrude, with only their outer surface visible. That is, in protruded vowels the inner surfaces of the lips form the opening (thus the alternate term ''endolabial''), whereas in compressed vowels it is the margins of the lips which form the opening (thus ''exolabial).'' observes that back and central rounded vowels, such as German and , are typically protruded, whereas front rounded vowels such as German and are typically compressed. Back or central compressed vowels and front protruded vowels are uncommon, and a contrast between the two types has been found to be phonemic in only one instance. There are no dedicated IPA diacritics to represent the distinction, but the superscript IPA letter or can be used for compression and for protrusion. Compressed vowels may be pronounced either with the corners of the mouth drawn in, by some definitions rounded, or with the corners spread and, by the same definitions, unrounded. The distinction may be transcribed vs (or vs ).Occasionally other symbols may be used, such as protruded () and compressed (). To avoid the implication that the superscript represents an off-glide, it might be placed above the base letter: . Ladefoged & Maddieson use old IPA for protrusion (w-like labialization without velarization), while use subscript w for protrusion and a reversed for compression. This recalls an old IPA convention of rounding an unrounded vowel letter like ''i'' with a subscript omega, and unrounding a rounded letter like ''u'' with a turned omega (Jespersen & Pedersen 1926: 19). The distinction between protruded and compressed holds for the
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the ...
s and as well as labialization. In
Akan Akan may refer to: People and languages *Akan people, an ethnic group in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire *Akan language, a language spoken by the Akan people *Kwa languages, a language group which includes Akan * Central Tano languages, a language group ...
, for example, the is compressed, as are labio-palatalized consonants as in ''Twi'' "Twi" and ''adwuma'' "work", whereas and simply labialized consonants are protruded. In Japanese, the is compressed rather than protruded, paralleling the Japanese . The distinction applies marginally to other consonants. In Southern Teke, the sole language reported to have a phonemic , the labiodental sound is "accompanied by strong protrusion of both lips", whereas the found as an
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
of before in languages such as English is not protruded, as the lip contacts the teeth along its upper or outer edge. Also, in at least one account of
speech acquisition Speech acquisition focuses on the development of vocal, acoustic and oral language by a child. This includes motor planning and execution, pronunciation, phonological and articulation patterns (as opposed to content and grammar which is language). ...
, a child's pronunciation of ''clown'' involves a lateral with the upper teeth contacting the upper-outer edge of the lip, but in ''crown'', a non-lateral is pronounced with the teeth contacting the inner surface of the protruded lower lip. Some vowels transcribed with rounded IPA letters may not be rounded at all. An example is , the vowel of ''lot'', which in
Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent traditionally regarded as the Standard language, standard and most Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been ...
has very little if any rounding of the lips. The "throaty" sound of the vowel is instead accomplished with
sulcalization Sulcalization (from la, sulcus 'groove'), in phonetics, is the pronunciation of a sound, typically a sibilant consonant, such as English and , with a deep ''groove'' running along the back of the tongue that focuses the airstream on the teeth, p ...
, a furrowing of the back of the tongue also found in , the vowel of ''nurse''. It is possible to mimic the acoustic effect of rounded vowels by narrowing the cheeks, so-called "cheek rounding", which is inherent in back protruded (but not front compressed) vowels. The technique is used by ventriloquists to mask the visible rounding of back vowels like . It is not clear if it is used by languages with rounded vowels that do not use visible rounding. Of the open-mid vowels, occurs in Swedish and Norwegian. Central and back have not been reported to occur in any language.


Spread and neutral

The lip position of unrounded vowels may be classified into two groups: ''spread'' and ''neutral''. Front vowels are usually pronounced with the lips spread, and the spreading becomes more significant as the height of the vowel increases. Open vowels are often neutral, i.e. neither rounded nor spread, because the open jaw allows for limited rounding or spreading of the lips. This is reflected in the IPA's definition of the
cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to: Animals * Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae **''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
, which is unrounded yet not spread either.


Roundedness and labialization

Protruded rounding is the vocalic equivalent of consonantal
labialization Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...
. Thus, rounded vowels and labialized consonants affect one another by phonetic assimilation: Rounded vowels labialize consonants, and labialized consonants round vowels. In many languages, such effects are minor phonetic detail, but in others, they become significant. For example, in
Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern Standar ...
, the vowel is pronounced after labial consonants, an allophonic effect that is so important that it is encoded in
pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
transliteration: alveolar () 'many' vs. labial () 'wave'. In
Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...
, the opposite assimilation takes place: velar codas and are pronounced as labialized and or even labial-velar and , after the rounded vowels and . In the Northwest Caucasian languages of the Caucasus and the
Sepik languages The Sepik or Sepik River languages are a family of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea, proposed by Donald Laycock in 1965 in a somewhat more limited form than presented here. They tend to have ...
of
Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
, historically rounded vowels have become unrounded, with the rounding being taken up by the consonant. Thus, Sepik and are phonemically and . In the extinct Ubykh, and were phonemically and . A few ancient
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
like
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
had labiovelar consonants.


Phonemic roundedness in English

It is rare for accents of English to differentiate vowels only by their roundedness. Minimal pairs like this can be found in some
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
dialects (such as the
Cardiff dialect The Cardiff accent, also known as Cardiff English, is the regional accent of English, and a variety of Welsh English, as spoken in and around the city of Cardiff, and is somewhat distinctive in Wales, compared with other Welsh accents. Its pit ...
,
Geordie Geordie () is a nickname for a person from the Tyneside area of North East England, and the dialect used by its inhabitants, also known in linguistics as Tyneside English or Newcastle English. There are different definitions of what constitut ...
and
Port Talbot English Port Talbot English (PTE) is a variety of Welsh English spoken in Port Talbot, generally by the working class. Phonetics and phonology Consonants Consonants in Port Talbot English generally follow those of Received Pronunciation. Some phonolog ...
) as well as in General
South African English South African English (SAfrE, SAfrEng, SAE, en-ZA) is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, when they established a military holding op ...
. Most commonly, they involve a contrastive pair of
close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel (also mid-close vowel, high-mid vowel, mid-high vowel or half-close vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one th ...
s, with the unrounded vowel being either or a monophthongal and the rounded counterpart being . Contrasts based on roundedness are rarely categorical in English and they may be enhanced by additional differences in height, backness or diphthongization. General South African English is unique among accents of English in that it can feature up to three front rounded vowels, with two of them having unrounded counterparts. The potential contrast between the close-mid and the open-mid is hard to perceive by outsiders, making utterances such as ''the total onslaught'' sound almost like ''the turtle onslaught'' .


See also

*
Close back compressed vowel The close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u. In ...
= = = (in Japanese and Swedish) *
Near-close back compressed vowel The near-close near-back rounded vowel, or near-high near-back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some vocal languages. The IPA symbol that represents this sound is . It is informally called "horseshoe u". Prior to 1989, there was ...
= (in Swedish) *
Close central compressed vowel } The close central rounded vowel, or high central rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is }. B ...
(in Norwegian) *
Mid central compressed vowel The mid central vowel (also known as schwa) is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a ə, rotated lowercase letter e. While the ''Handbook of th ...
(in Swedish) * Close front compressed vowel (in French, German, etc.) *
Mid front compressed vowel The mid front rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Although there is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the "exact" mid front rounded vowel between close-mid and open-mi ...
(in French, German, etc.) * Close front protruded vowel (in Swedish) * Near-close front protruded vowel (in Swedish) * Close-mid front protruded vowel (in Swedish) *
Open-mid front protruded vowel The open-mid front rounded vowel, or low-mid front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the sound is . The symbol œ is a lowercase ligature o ...
(in Swedish) *
Close central protruded vowel } The close central rounded vowel, or high central rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is }. B ...
*
Mid central protruded vowel The mid central vowel (also known as schwa) is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a ə, rotated lowercase letter e. While the ''Handbook of th ...
*
Close back protruded vowel The close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u. In ...
(common) * Mid back protruded vowel (common) *
List of phonetics topics A * Acoustic phonetics * Active articulator * Affricate * Airstream mechanism * Alexander John Ellis * Alexander Melville Bell * Alfred C. Gimson * Allophone * Alveolar approximant () * Alveolar click () * Alveolar consonant * Alveolar ejective ...


Notes


References

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External links

* * * {{IPA navigation Vowels Labial consonants