Open-mid back unrounded vowel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

IPA – number	314
IPA – text	ʌ
IPA – image
Entity	ʌ
X-SAMPA	V
Kirshenbaum	V
Sound sample (help·info)

The open-mid back unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʌ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is V. The IPA symbol is an inverted letter v and both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as either a wedge, a caret, or a hat. In transcriptions for some languages (including several dialects of English), this symbol is also used for the Near-open central vowel

Contents 1 Features 2 Occurrence 3 References 4 Bibliography

[edit] Features

• Its vowel height is open-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel and a mid vowel.
• Its vowel backness is back, which means the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

[edit] Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
English	Newfoundland[1]	plus	[plʌs]	'plus'	Less fronted than other dialects. See English phonology
	Philadelphia[2]
Irish		ola	[ʌlˠə]	'oil'	See Irish phonology
Korean		벌	[pʌl]	'punishment'	See Korean phonology
Vietnamese		ân	[ʌn]	'favour; grace'	Also analyzed as central [ɜ]. See Vietnamese phonology

Before World War II, Received Pronunciation had phoneme /ʌ/ as being phonetically close to a back vowel [ʌ]; this sound has since shifted forward towards [ɐ] (a Near-open central vowel). Daniel Jones reports his speech (southern British), as having an advanced back vowel [ʌ̘] between his central /ə/ and back /ɔ/; however, he also reports that other southern speakers had a lower and even more advanced vowel approaching cardinal [a].^[3] In American English varieties, e.g., the West and Midwest, and the urban South, the typical phonetic realization of the phoneme /ʌ/ is a central vowel that can be transcribed as [ɜ] (open-mid central).^[4][5] Truly backed variants of /ʌ/ that are phonetically [ʌ] can occur in Inland Northern American English, Newfoundland English, Philadelphia English, some African-American Englishes, and (old-fashioned) white Southern English in coastal plain and Piedmont areas.^[6][7] Despite this, the symbol < ʌ > is still commonly used to indicate this phoneme, even in the more common varieties with central variants [ɐ] or [ɜ]. This may be due to both tradition as well as the fact that some other dialects retain the older pronunciation.^[8].

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Gordon, Matthew (2004a), "New York, Philadelphia and other Northern Cities", in Kortmann, Bernd, A Handbook of Varieties of English: Volume 1: Phonology, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 294-296, ISBN 3110175320 
• Gordon, Matthew (2004b), "The West and Midwest: phonology", in Kortmann, Bernd, A Handbook of Varieties of English: Volume 1: Phonology, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 340, ISBN 3110175320 
• Jones, Daniel (1972). An outline of English phonetics (9th ed.). Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd.. 
• Roca, Iggy; Johnson, Wyn (1999). Course in Phonology. Blackwell Publishing. 
• Thomas, Erik R. (2001), "An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English", Publication of the American Dialect Society (Duke University Press for the American Dialect Society) 85, ISSN 0002-8207 
• Tillery, Jan and Guy Bailey, "The urban South: phonology", in Kortmann, Bernd, A Handbook of Varieties of English: Volume 1: Phonology, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 333, ISBN 3110175320