Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization 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 vowels tend to be unrounded, and back vowels tend to be rounded. However, some languages, such as French, German and Icelandic, distinguish rounded and unrounded front vowels of the same height (degree of openness), and Vietnamese distinguishes rounded and unrounded back vowels of the same height. Alekano has only unrounded vowels.Template:Sfnp

In the International Phonetic Alphabet vowel chart, rounded vowels are the ones that appear on the right in each pair of vowels. There are also diacritics, Template:Unichar and Template:Unichar, 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 .

Typology

Template:Multiple image Template:Multiple image 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). Template:Harvtxt observes that back and central rounded vowels, such as German Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink, are typically protruded, whereas front rounded vowels such as German Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink 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 Template:IPAalink or Template:IPAalink can be used for compression and Template:Angbr IPA 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 Template:Angbr IPA vs Template:Angbr IPA (or Template:Angbr IPA vs Template:Angbr IPA).

The distinction between protruded and compressed holds for the semivowels and as well as labialization. In Akan, for example, the Template:IPAblink is compressed, as are labio-palatalized consonants as in Twi "Twi" and adwuma "work", whereas and simply labialized consonants are protruded.Template:Sfnp 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 Template:IPAslink, the labiodental sound is "accompanied by strong protrusion of both lips",Template:Sfnp whereas the Template:IPAblink found as an allophone 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, 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.Template:Sfnp

Some vowels transcribed with rounded IPA letters may not be rounded at all. An example is Template:IPAslink, the vowel of lot, which in Received Pronunciation has very little if any rounding of the lips. The "throaty" sound of the vowel is instead accomplished with sulcalization, a furrowing of the back of the tongue also found in Template:IPAslink, the vowel of nurse.Template:Sfnp

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 .Template:Sfnp It is not clear if it is used by languages with rounded vowels that do not use visible rounding.

Unrounded, compressed and protruded vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Semivowel			Template:Sfnp
Close
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid

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.Template:Sfnp Open vowels are often neutral, i.e. neither rounded nor spread, because the open jaw allows for limited rounding or spreading of the lips.Template:Sfnp This is reflected in the IPA's definition of the cardinal Template:IPAblink, which is unrounded yet not spread either.Template:Sfnp

Labialization

Protruded rounding is the vocalic equivalent of consonantal labialization. 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, the vowel is pronounced after labial consonants, an allophonic effect that is so important that it is encoded in pinyin transliteration: alveolar Template:IPAc-cmn (Template:Zh) 'many' vs. labial Template:IPAc-cmn (Template:Zh) 'wave'. In Vietnamese, 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 of Papua New Guinea, 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 like Latin had labialized velar consonants.Template:Sfnp

English

Vowel pairs differentiated by roundedness can be found in some British dialects (such as the Cardiff dialect, Geordie and Port Talbot English) as well as in General South African English. They involve a contrastive pair of close-mid vowels, with the unrounded vowel being either Template:Sc2 Template:IPAc-en or a monophthongal Template:Sc2 Template:IPAc-en and the rounded counterpart being Template:Sc2 Template:IPAc-en. Contrasts based on roundedness are rarely categorical in English and they may be enhanced by additional differences in height, backness or diphthongization.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Template:Sc, Template:Sc and Template:Sc in some dialects

Accent	Vowel			Notes
	Template:Sc	Template:Sc	Template:Sc
CardiffTemplate:Sfnp		Template:IPAblink	Template:IPAblink	Template:Sc2 may be open-mid Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp
General SAETemplate:Sfnp		Template:IPAblink	Template:IPAblink
GeordieTemplate:Sfnp	Template:IPAblink	Template:IPAblink	Template:IPAblink	Template:Sc2 may be diphthongal , whereas Template:Sc2 may be back Template:IPAblink or unrounded .Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
Port TalbotTemplate:Sfnp	Template:IPAblink	Template:IPAblink	Template:IPAblink	The accent does not feature the pane–pain merger.Template:Sfnp

In addition, contemporary Standard Southern British English as well as Western Pennsylvania English contrast Template:Sc2 with Template:Sc2 mostly by rounding. An example of a minimal pairs is nut vs. not. The vowels are open-mid in the former dialect and open in the latter. In Western Pennsylvania English, the Template:Sc2 class also includes the Template:Sc2 class (see cot-caught merger) and the Template:Sc2 one (see father-bother merger). In addition, Template:Sc2 may be longer than Template:Sc2 due to its being a free vowel: Template:IPAblink. In SSBE, these are all distinct and Template:Sc2 is a checked vowel. In Scottish English, the two vowels tend to be realized as Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink, respectively. The latter often includes the Template:Sc2 class as the cot-caught merger is common in Scotland. If Template:Sc2 is distinct, it is realized as Template:IPAblink, whereas Template:Sc2 is lowered to Template:IPAblink or raised to Template:IPAblink. This means that while nought contrasts with nut by rounding, not may have a different vowel . In addition, all three vowels are short in Scotland (see Scottish vowel length rule), unless followed by a voiced fricative where Template:Sc2 (and Template:Sc2, if they are merged) is long, as in England.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Template:Sc, Template:Sc and Template:Sc in some dialects

Accent	Vowel			Notes
	Template:Sc	Template:Sc	Template:Sc
Scottish EnglishTemplate:Sfnp	Template:IPAblink		Template:IPAblink	Template:Sc2 often merges with Template:Sc2.
Standard Southern British EnglishTemplate:Sfnp	Template:IPAblink	Template:IPAblink	Template:IPAblink
Western Pennsylvania EnglishTemplate:Sfnp	Template:IPAblink	Template:IPAblink		The Template:Sc2 class also includes Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2.

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.Template:Sfnp

Long front vowels in General SAETemplate:Sfnp

Height	Unr. vowel		Rnd. vowel		Notes
	lexical set	realization	lexical set	realization
Close	Template:Sc2	Template:IPAblink	Template:Sc2	Template:IPAblink	Template:Sc2 may be central Template:IPAblink.
Close-mid	Template:Sc2	Template:IPAblink	Template:Sc2	Template:IPAblink
Open-mid	(unpaired)		Template:Sc2	Template:IPAblink	Template:Sc2 may be diphthongal .

The potential contrast between the close-mid Template:IPAblink and the open-mid Template:IPAblink is hard to perceive by outsiders, making utterances such as the total onslaught sound almost like the turtle onslaught .Template:Sfnp

See also

• Close back compressed vowel = = = (in Japanese and Swedish)
• Near-close back compressed vowel = (in Swedish)
• Close central compressed vowel (in Norwegian)
• Mid central compressed vowel (in Swedish)
• Close front compressed vowel (in French, German, etc.)
• Mid front compressed vowel (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 (in Swedish)
• Close central protruded vowel
• Mid central protruded vowel
• Close back protruded vowel (common)
• Mid back protruded vowel (common)
• List of phonetics topics

References

• Template:SOWL
• Template:Accents of English

External links

• Template:Wiktionary-inline
• Template:Wiktionary-inline
• Template:Wiktionary-inline