A vertical vowel system is the system of
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 ...
s in a language that requires only
vowel height
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 ...
to phonemically distinguish vowels. Theoretically,
rounding
Rounding means replacing a number with an approximate value that has a shorter, simpler, or more explicit representation. For example, replacing $ with $, the fraction 312/937 with 1/3, or the expression with .
Rounding is often done to obta ...
,
frontness and
backness could also be used in one-dimensional vowel systems; however, ''vertical'' refers specifically to the usage of vowel height as the sole distinguishing feature.
Vertical vowel systems have only been uncovered in the
underlying representation
In some models of phonology as well as morphophonology in the field of linguistics, the underlying representation (UR) or underlying form (UF) of a word or morpheme is the abstract form that a word or morpheme is postulated to have before any phono ...
of various languages'
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 ...
.
Phonetically
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. ...
, all known natural languages employ both front and back vowels. In a vertical vowel system, the occurrence of front vs. back vowels is however predictable, governed by one or more
phonological process
A phonological rule is a formal way of expressing a systematic phonological or morphophonological process or diachronic sound change in language. Phonological rules are commonly used in generative phonology as a notation to capture sound-related o ...
es.
Two different diachronic mechanisms may give rise to a vertical vowel system. In some cases, the front-back distinction may simply be lost when vowels are merged. This has occurred in
Wichita, in which an old vowel (preserved in the related language
Pawnee Pawnee initially refers to a Native American people and its language:
* Pawnee people
* Pawnee language
Pawnee is also the name of several places in the United States:
* Pawnee, Illinois
* Pawnee, Kansas
* Pawnee, Missouri
* Pawnee City, Nebraska
* ...
) has merged with . However, the Wichita vowel system is not ''phonetically'' vertical, as is realised as
open
Open or OPEN may refer to:
Music
* Open (band), Australian pop/rock band
* The Open (band), English indie rock band
* ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969
* ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999
* ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001
* ''Open'' (YF ...
back
The human back, also called the dorsum, is the large posterior area of the human body, rising from the top of the buttocks to the back of the neck. It is the surface of the body opposite from the chest and the abdomen. The vertebral column run ...
, as
open-mid front
Front may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film
* ''The Front'', 1976 film
Music
* The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...
, and as
close
Close may refer to:
Music
* ''Close'' (Kim Wilde album), 1988
* ''Close'' (Marvin Sapp album), 2017
* ''Close'' (Sean Bonniwell album), 1969
* "Close" (Sub Focus song), 2014
* "Close" (Nick Jonas song), 2016
* "Close" (Rae Sremmurd song), 201 ...
to
close-mid front; hence, the feature
backis relevant to the ''phonetics'' of the language, even though it is not a salient phonological distinction. Similarly, the vowel is heard in Wichita utterances, although this vowel is usually the phonetic result of a contraction of sequences of
hort vowel + w + short vowel a phenomenon also noted in other languages with vertical vowel systems.
More striking is a phenomenon whereby one or more phonological features of vowels are lost and reassigned to the consonants at the syllable periphery, leaving all vowels
underspecified for frontness, rounding, or both. This has occurred in
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Australi ...
, in which vowel rounding has been lost and consonantal
labialisation
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 ...
gained as a result. All members of the
Northwest Caucasian
The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes ''Pontic languages'' (from the historical region of Pontus, in contrast to ''Caspian languages'' for the Northeast Cauc ...
family have reassigned both rounding and frontness to the syllable periphery, the former surfacing as consonantal labialisation, and the latter as
palatalisation. This has also occurred in
Marshallese. Some argue that the short vowels of
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
have similarly lost their frontness specification, forming a rudimentary vertical system. However, almost all Irish consonants appear in palatalised and non-palatalised forms, so the loss of frontness specification is viewed as a consequence, rather than a cause, of consonant palatalisation. Furthermore, the loss of frontness specification in Irish is limited to the
short vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...
s of the language; the
long vowels
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
of Irish retain a front-back distinction. Marshallese also has front-back distinction for its long vowels, but these are phonemically sequences of where is a
semiconsonant
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 ...
; for example, ' "rose" is broadly , but more narrowly .
''Zero''-dimensional vowel systems, with one phonemic vowel only, have been postulated for
Nuxálk, Kabardian and some
Abkhaz dialects, as well as several Central Chadic languages such as
Moloko
Moloko () were an Irish-English electronic music duo formed in Sheffield, England, consisting of vocalist Róisín Murphy and producer Mark Brydon. Blending elements of electronica and dance music, they are best known for their UK top 10 sing ...
. A phonological analysis with no phonemic vowels at all has been shown to be possible for
Mofu-Gudur.
Vertical vowel systems been noted for the following languages:
*
Northwest Caucasian
The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes ''Pontic languages'' (from the historical region of Pontus, in contrast to ''Caspian languages'' for the Northeast Cauc ...
**
Abkhaz (two degrees)
**
Adyghe (three degrees)
**
Kabardian (two, perhaps three degrees)
**
Ubykh (two, perhaps three degrees)
*
Caddoan
The Caddoan languages are a family of languages native to the Great Plains spoken by tribal groups of the central United States, from present-day North Dakota south to Oklahoma. All Caddoan languages are critically endangered, as the number of sp ...
**
Wichita (three degrees)
*
Pama-Nyungan
**
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Australi ...
(two degrees)
*
Austronesian
**
Marshallese (four degrees)
*
Sepik–Ramu languages
*
Goidelic
The Goidelic or Gaelic languages ( ga, teangacha Gaelacha; gd, cànanan Goidhealach; gv, çhengaghyn Gaelgagh) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages.
Goidelic languages historically ...
**
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
(three degrees for short vowels ''only'')
*
Sinitic
The Sinitic languages (漢語族/汉语族), often synonymous with "Chinese languages", are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute the major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there is ...
**
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
(two degrees, according to
some analyses)
Kazakh,
Mongolian and
Tundra Nenets have vowel systems resembling a vertical vowel system in that backness is not phonemic; however, they are not one-dimensional. Backness has in Kazakh and Mongolian been reinterpreted as
advanced tongue root
In phonetics, advanced tongue root (ATR) and retracted tongue root (RTR) are contrasting states of the root of the tongue during the pronunciation of vowels in some languages, especially in Western and Eastern Africa, but also in Kazakh and Mong ...
, while in Tundra Nenets backness is determined according to the palatalization of adjacent consonants. Vowels are otherwise distinguished, in addition to height, by diphthongization and, in Kazakh and Tundra Nenets, rounding.
Vowel prosody system
Complex interaction between a vertical vowel system and
vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
, known as a vowel prosody system, appears in many of the
Central Chadic languages
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
. One of the best known cases is
Margi, but the phenomenon has been documented in more than thirty languages of the group altogether, including all or most languages of five geographically adjacent subgroups:
* Daba group:
Buwal,
Daba,
Mbudum,
Mina
* Hurza group:
Mbuko,
Vame
* Musgum group:
Mbara,
Muskum
* Mafa group:
Cuvok,
Mafa
* Mofu group:
Dugwor,
Gemzek,
Mada
Mada ( sa, मद) is a term used in both Āstika and nāstika, Hindu theology and Hindu mythology, mythology. It is one of the Arishadvargas. It refers to one of the six enemy of the mind or a vice according to the Hindu texts, Hindu scriptures ...
,
Merey,
Mofu-Gudur,
Moloko
Moloko () were an Irish-English electronic music duo formed in Sheffield, England, consisting of vocalist Róisín Murphy and producer Mark Brydon. Blending elements of electronica and dance music, they are best known for their UK top 10 sing ...
,
Muyang,
Ouldeme,
Zulgo
Further examples of the system of the appear in e.g.
Gidar and
Podoko.
A typical feature for these languages is that vowel frontness or roundedness cannot be considered a
segmental feature but is instead a
suprasegmental
In linguistics, prosody () is concerned with elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but are properties of syllables and larger units of speech, including linguistic functions such as intonation, str ...
feature, spanning an entire
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology.
In English, morphemes are ...
or phonological
word
A word is a basic element of language that carries an semantics, objective or pragmatics, practical semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of w ...
. All Central Chadic languages allow frontness as a prosody and therefore contrast minimal pairs such as vs. ; only some allow roundedness as a prosody, and in others, rounded vowels are found only next to labialized velar consonants.
References
Sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vertical Vowel System
Vowels
Phonology