 In our first e-lecture about vowels we discussed the general principles involved in the articulation of vowels and the main phonetic parameters of their description. We defined vowels as speech sounds that involve pulmonic air and a free air passage through the vocal tract. Furthermore, we showed how the cardinal vowel chart can be constructed as a reference system for the articulatory description of vowels and we looked at the main parameters used for the classification of vowels. They are tongue position. Now depending on the position of the tongue or more precisely on the location of the narrowing in the vocal tract, vowels can be defined as front vowels, as central vowels or as back vowels. The second parameter is referred to as tongue height. With the parameter tongue height we can classify high vowels, mid high vowels, mid low vowels and low vowels. And finally we have lip rounding. All vowels can be produced with rounded lips or with unrounded or spread lips. Here we have indicated this by means of different colors. The vowels that have to be produced with unrounded lips are represented in red and the blue ones have to be produced with a rounded lip position. The central ones are represented in black because they involve some sort of neutral lip position. Let us look at some examples. E is an unrounded mid high front vowel. U is a rounded mid high back vowel. U is an unrounded high back vowel and R is a low central vowel. With these three parameters we have defined a reference system that can be used to describe the vowels that are used in the languages of the world. And here we can identify several different types of vowels and then we can relate them to the system of the cardinal vowels. Let us start with monophones. Monophones or simple vowels consist of one simple articulatory posture. All languages have monophones. And these monophones can now be positioned on the vowel chart in relationship to the cardinal vowels. Remember, the cardinal vowels are reference vowels. That is they involve extreme articulatory possibilities but they are not necessarily realizations of the vowels of any particular language. Let us illustrate this with a vowel E in three different languages. Now the E in French is known to be an E that is extremely close to cardinal one. It is clearly an unrounded high front vowel words such as C or linguistic illustrate the high tongue position and the front tongue position of this type of E. The E in German is still very high and very much fronted however it is slightly lower than the French one. A keyword would be feel which means much in English and as you can hear it is a bit more away from cardinal one than the French one. Well the E in C for example in RP is slightly centralized and it is half way between cardinal one and two. An example I have already pronounced it would be C. To make such judgments requires intensive phonetic training and even then phoneticians often have different opinions about the exact placement of a vowel on the vowel chart. Since a precise placement in terms of a tiny dot is impossible anyway we suggest to use relatively large squares for the representation of vowels that are produced with unrounded lips and relatively large circles for the representation of vowels that are produced with rounded lips. Let us now look at the second type of vowels the diphthongs. A diphthong is a vowel which undergoes considerable change of quality during pronunciation. Therefore it appears to have two parts an onset the first vowel and an offset the second vowel and between them there is a transition from the first to the second the so-called glide. On the basis of this glide they can be defined as up gliding diphthongs. Some people call them closing diphthong because they end in a high or close position but more popular is the term up gliding. In up gliding diphthongs the onset which is somewhere here is always lower than the offset which is somewhere here. The second possibility is this one the down gliding possibility. Now here the onset is in each case higher than the offset here are the offsets so we have down gliding and some people call them opening diphthongs. And finally the third possibility are the so-called centering diphthongs where in each case the offset is somewhere in the center and the onsets are somewhere near the edges of the vowel chart. An alternative term would be centering diphthong. A less common classification defines diphthongs according to the prominence of one of their parts. If the second part of the offset is prominent you have a rising diphthong. If the first part or the onset is prominent you have a falling diphthong. Cross linguistically the onsets that is the first part of a diphthong as well as the direction or transitional glide and the distance of tongue movement very considerably. Again we can show that on the vowel chart. Here are three examples of the diphthong oy from the virtual linguistics campus. Now the oy in Spanish has the highest onset. Doi. Again? Doi. It is somewhere between a mid and a mid high vowel and it is certainly front up gliding ending in an unrounded front vowel. The onset of the diphthong oy in German is lower and the front up glide ends in a high front vowel which involves some degree of lip rounding as indicated by the symbol used for the offset. Somewhere in between we have the British English RP version. Doi. Again? Doi. Now this diphthong involves an almost mid onset and the shortest transition the shortest glide. It is still front up gliding but the front up glide ends in an unrounded mid high centralized vowel. Judgments like these require intensive phonetic training. This cannot be emphasized often enough. And even then phoneticians keep arguing about the exact placement of the vowels and their parts on the cardinal vowel chart. Let's now look at the next possibility of classifying vowels. One possibility is to look at nasalization. Now normally in all vowels the velum is closed and we have some sort of velic closure. So this is referred to as velic closure and the air does not flow out through the nose. Now if the velum is lowered like here we have a velic opening and now part of the airstream can fill the nasal cavity. It never escapes through the nasal cavity. It fills the nasal cavity and uses the nasal cavity as a second resonance chamber. This effect is referred to as nasalization. Nasalized vowels are represented by their standard symbol but then they receive an additional symbol, the symbol a diacritic which looks like this to indicate that they are nasalized. Here are two examples from French and Polish, two languages that have nasalized vowels. Now let's listen, Polish, herbaton, ciążka and French, son, son. Okay, another possibility of classifying vowels is in terms of voicing. Normally vowels are voiced that is the vocal folds vibrate. However there are languages where we can find voiceless or whispered vowels. In Japanese the vowels i and u are often devoiced or voiceless especially when they occur in a syllable final position or after voiceless fricatives. The diacritic that is used to indicate devoicing is a circle underneath the vowel as a subscript. Well let's listen to these examples from Japanese where you can clearly hear the contrast between voiceless and voiced vowels. Now here we have a speaker from the main island of Japan from Ako and here you find the contrast. Now first of all a voiced vowel and now a voiceless variant and you can hear that the i after is voiceless. The same over here and the voiceless vowel. Okay, now finally we have vowels that are called semi-vowels. All semi-vowels or approximants are problematic for phonetic analysis. Here are two semi-vowels. Semi-vowels are similar to vowels since they allow an almost free air passage. However the degree of narrowing is higher than that of the corresponding vowel. The palatal approximate y is similar to cardinal 1e and the labial vela approximate w is similar to cardinal number 8. Again let's listen to some cross linguistic examples from the Virtual Linguistics Campus Language Index that illustrate the phenomenon of semi-vowels which are in the continental classification classified as approximate. So here we have some semi-vowels for example. Yes, in English in Bulgarian the palatal approximate or here the labial vela approximate in English wet or the same in Arabic and you hear the quality is almost like that of a vowel. So this is a very difficult issue the treatment of semi-vowels as vowels or consonants. Let us summarize. As a result of this e-lecture you should have understood how the various types of vowels can be classified using the central parameters, tongue position, tongue height, lip rounding and additional features such as nasalization or devoicing. With this knowledge and a sufficient amount of phonetic training you should now be able to identify the vowels of different languages and different speakers in order to relate them to the cardinal vowels. But you have to practice this essential phonetic ability. For this purpose I recommend that you use the interactive tutor on the Virtual Linguistics Campus with its ear training options or simply join our phonetics and phonology classes where you are supplied with a wealth of exercise material.