part of the tongue where the sound is formed, the tongue being clenched or bunched up lengthwise, so as to be more convex than in its relaxed or “wide” condition.
The distinction between narrow and wide can often be ignored in practical phonetic writing, for it generally depends on quantity; length and narrowness, shortness and wideness going together. When the distinction is marked, wide vowels may be expressed by italics, as in German (biinə, bin).
Bell's category of “mixed-round” vowels had from the beginning been a source of difficulty to students of Visible Speech. But it was not till 1901 that Sweet showed that they are only mixed as regards position: they are really the corresponding back-round vowels moved forward into the middle of the mouth while preserving the slope of back vowels, instead of having the tongue flat as in the (unround) mixed vowels. They are “out-back” vowels: there is an exaggeration of the outer back position of such a back-round vowel as the English (u) compared with the full back (u) in German muttre.
In the same way by moving the tongue backwards while forming a front vowel another series of “in-front” vowels is obtained.
The “in-mixed” vowels are obtained by shifting the neutral mixed positions into the full back position, keeping the tongue flat, so that these vowels might also be called “back-flat.”
The out-back, in-front and in-mixed vowels are included under the common designation of “shifted,” as opposed to “normal” vowels.
There is a large number of other vowel-schemes, of which a survey will be found in W. Vietor's Elemente der Phonetik. Many of the older ones are in the form of triangles, with the three chief vowels a, i, u at the three corners, the other vowels being inserted between these extremes according to their acoustic relations. Since the appearance of Visible Speech many attempts have been made to fit his new vowels into these older schemes.
Of all the vowel-schemes the one now most generally known is perhaps that of the International Phonetic Association already mentioned. In this scheme the distinction of narrow and wide, though admitted and occasionally marked, is not an integral part of the system, the vowels being classified first as “velar” (back) and “palatal” (front), and then according to openness as “close,” “half-close,” “medium,” “half-open” and “open.”
Consonants.—These are the result of audible fiiction or stoppage, which may be accompanied either with breath, voice or whisper. Consonants admit of a two-fold division (1) by form, and (2) by place. Thus (p, b) are by place lip-consonants, while by form they are stopped consonants or “stops.”
If the mouth-stoppage is kept, and the nose-passage is opened, the stop becomes the corresponding “nasal”; thus (b) with the soft palate lowered becomes the nasal (m).
In “open” consonants the sound is formed by simply narrowing the passage, as in the back-open-breath (x) in Scotch and German loch. In some open consonants, such as the lip-teeth (f), there is slight contact of the organs, but without impeding the flow of breath.
In “divided” consonants there is central stoppage with openings at the sides, as in the familiar point-divided (l). These consonants are sometimes “unilateral”—with the opening on the side only—the character of the sound not being sensibly modified thereby.
When open and divided consonants are formed with the nose passage open they are said to be “nasalized.” Thus (m) with complete lip-closure becomes the nasalized lip-open-voice consonant.
“Trills” (or rolled) consonants are a special variety of un-stopped consonants resulting from the vibration of flexible parts against one another, as when the lips are trilled, or against some firm surface, as when the point of the tongue trills against the gums in the Scotch (r), or the uvula against time back of the tongue, as in the Northumbrian burred (r), and the French and German (r), where—especially in German—the trill is often reduced to a minimum or suppressed altogether.
As regards the place of consonants, there is, as already remarked, great diversity among phoneticians, both in mapping out the palate and tongue and in the names given to these divisions. The classification and nomenclature given here is, in the main, that of Bell.
By place then, we distinguish seven main classes of consonants: back, front, point, blade, fan, lip, and lip-teeth.
“Back” (guttural) consonants are formed between the root of the tongue and the soft palate. In most languages the positions of these consonants vary according to those of the accompany in vowels. thus the back-stop and back-nasal in king are more forward than in conquer.
“Front” (palatal) consonants are formed between the middle of the tongue and the hard palate, the point of the tongue lying passively behind the lower teeth. It is easy to make the front open-voice (j) in you into the corresponding stop (ɟ) by narrowing the passage till there is complete closure, as in Hungarian nagy (nɔɟ) “world.” In the same way the open breath (ç) in German ich may be made into the stop (c) = Hungarian ty. (ɟ) nasalized becomes (ñ)—Italian gn, Spanish ñ, French gn in vigne. The front-divided-voice consonant is the Italian gl and Spanish ll. These are all simple sounds, distinct from the (lj), (nj) in French and English million and English onion.
“Point” consonants when formed against the teeth are called “point-teeth” (dental). English (þ) in thin is the point-teeth-open-breath consonant, (ð) in then the corresponding voice consonant. If (ð) is modified by turning the tip of the tongue back into the inner position—about on the arch-rim—it becomes the untrilled (r) in English rearing, in which position the tongue is easily trilled, the trilling becoming more and more difficult the more the tongue is approximated to the point-teeth position. In French and many other languages all the point consonants (t, d, n, l), &c., are formed on the teeth, except (r), which is always more retracted than the other point consonants. If the tip of the tongue is turned so far back as to articulate with its lower edge against the arch of the palate—that is, farther back than for the “inner” position—it is said to be “inverted.” Inverted (r) is frequent in the dialects of the south-west of England. The opposite of inversion is “protrusion,” in which the tip of the tongue articulates against the upper lip.
“Blade” consonants are formed by the blade or flattened tip of the tongue against the gums, as in English (s, z), or against the teeth, as in the corresponding French sounds. If these consonants are modified by turning the tongue a little back, so as to bring the point more into play, they become the “blade-point” consonants (ʃ, ʒ), as in fish, measure. (ʃ) is acoustically a dull (s). In some languages, such as German, sounds similar to (ʃ) and (z) are formed partly by rounding, which lowers the pitch of the hiss in the same way as retraction does, so that the tongue-articulation is only imperfectly carried out. When the rounding is very marked there is only a slight raising of the front of the tongue, as in some Swedish dialects; and if the tongue-articulation is progressively shifted back, and the rounding diminished in the same proportion, (ʃ) can at last develop into the pure back-open consonant (x), as in the present pronunciation of Spanish x and j.
The English point consonants (t, d, n, l) are formed on the gums just behind the teeth, the point of the tongue being fattened, so that they are almost blade consonants.
“Fan” (spread) consonants—the “emphatic” consonants of Arabic—are modifications of point and blad)e consonants, in which the sides of the tongue are spread out, so that the hiss of such a consonant as (s) is formed partly between the sides of the tongue and the back teeth, which gives a peculiar deep, dull quality to these sounds.
“Lip” consonants, such as (p, m), and “lip-teeth” consonants, such as (f, v), offer no difficulty. The simple li-open-breath consonant does not occur in English; it is the sound produced in blowing out a candle. The corresponding voice sound is frequent in German—especially in Middle Germany—in such words as quelle.
If the lip-open consonants are modified by raising the back of the tongue, they become the “lip-back” consonants (wh, w) in English what, we, which may also be regarded as consonantized (u). In them the lip articulation predominates. In the “back-lip” consonants, as in German auch, the reverse is the case.
This last is one of a large number of “lip-modified” consonants, of which the already-mentioned German sch is a further example.
In a similar way consonants may be “front-modified.” (i) is peculiarly susceptible to such modifications. In French and other languages it is formed with the tongue more convex than in English, and consequently with a tendency to front-modification. Front-modified (s) and point (r) may be heard in Russian in such words as gusǐ “goose,” tsarǐ “emperor,” where the final vowels are silent.
Some consonants are formed below the mouth.
When the glottis is sharply opened or closed on a passage of breath or voice an effect is produced similar to that of a stop in the mouth, such as (k). This “glottal stop” is the sound produced in hiccuping; and is an independent sound in some languages, such as Arabic, where it is called “hamza.” In German all words beginning with a stressed (accented) vowel have a more or less distinct glottal stop before the vowel.
Of the passages below the glottis, the bronchial and the windpipe are both susceptible of contraction.
Spasmodic contraction of the bronchial passages is the main factor in producing what is known as “the asthmatic wheeze.” If this contraction is regulated and made voluntary it results in the deep hiss of the Arabic ḥā. If this sound is voiced, it causes a peculiar intermittent vibration of voice, which is habitual with some speakers, especially in Germany. If this effect is softened by slightly expanding the bronchial passages, an (r)-like sound is produced, which is that of the Arabic ’ain.
Contraction of the windpipe produces a sound similar to the Arabic ḥā, but weaker, which when followed by a vowel has the effect of a strong aspirate. When voiced it becomes a mere colourer of the accompanying voice-murmur, or vowel, to which it imparts a deep timbre.
Non-expiratory Sounds.—All the sounds hitherto described imply out-breathing or expiration. Many of them can also be formed with in-breathing or inspiration. In English it is a not uncommon trick of speech to pronounce no in this manner, to express emphatic denial.
