FACTOID # 22: The top nations for per capita imports and exports tend to be very small.
 
 Home   Encyclopedia   Statistics   Countries A-Z   Flags   Maps   Education   Forum   FAQ   About 
 
WHAT'S NEW
RECENT ARTICLES
More Recent Articles »
 

FACTS & STATISTICS    Simple view

  1. Select countries to view: (hold down Control key and click to select several)

     

     

    Compare:

     

     

  1. Select fact or statistic: (* = graphable)

     

     

     

  2. (OPTIONAL) Compare to statistic: (both need to be graphable)

     

     

     

  3. View result as:

     

       
(OR) SEARCH ALL encyclopedia, stats & forums:   

Encyclopedia > Checked and free vowels

In English phonetics and phonology, checked vowels are those that usually must be followed by a consonant in a stressed syllable, while free vowels are those that may stand in a stressed open syllable with no following consonant. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ... Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics closely associated with phonetics. ... A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... In linguistics, stress is the emphasis given to some syllables (often no more than one in each word, but in many languages, long words have a secondary stress a few syllables away from the primary stress, as in the words cóunterfòil or còunterintélligence. ... This article discusses the unit of speech. ...


In General American, the checked vowels are: General American is a notional accent of American English based on speech patterns common in the Midwest of the United States and those used by many American network television broadcasters. ...

  • /ɪ/ as in bit
  • /ɛ/ as in bet
  • /æ/ as in bat
  • /ʊ/ as in put
  • /ʌ/ as in but

The free vowels are:

  • /i/ as in bee
  • /e/ (also transcribed /eɪ/) as in bay
  • /u/ as in boo
  • /o/ (also transcribed /oʊ/) as in toe, no
  • /ɔ/ as in paw (doesn't occur in varieties with the low back merger).
  • /ɑ/ as in bra
  • /ɝ/ as in burr
  • /aɪ/ as in buy
  • /aʊ/ as in cow, now
  • /ɔɪ/ as in boy

The schwa /ə/ and rhotacized schwa /ɚ/ not usually are considered either free or checked, since they cannot stand in stressed syllables at all. // Father-bother merger The father-bother merger is a merger of the Early Modern English vowels and that occurs in almost all varieties of North American English (exceptions are accents in Eastern New England (such as the Boston accent) and New York-New Jersey English. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... Spectrogram of a regular vowel and its rhotacized counterpart. ...


The terms checked vowel and free vowel correspond closely to the terms lax vowel and tense vowel respectively, but many linguists prefer to use the terms checked and free as there is no clearcut phonetic definition of vowel tenseness, and since by most attempted definitions of tenseness /ɔ/ and /ɑ/ are considered lax, even though they behave in American English as free vowels. Tenseness is a term used in phonology to describe a particular vowel quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English. ... American English (AmE) is the dialect of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ...


Only a few interjections like nah /næ/, yeah /jæ/~/jɛ/, uh /ʌ/, duh /dʌ/ have a checked vowel at the end. An interjection, sometimes called a filled pause, is a part of speech that usually has no grammatical connection to the rest of the sentence and simply expresses emotion on the part of the speaker, although most interjections have clear definitions. ...


See also


  Results from FactBites:
 
Vowel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (3444 words)
In tonal languages, in most cases the tone of a syllable is carried by the vowel, meaning that the relative pitch or the pitch contour that marks the tone is superimposed on the vowel.
Vowels are especially important to the structures of words in languages that have very few consonants (like Polynesian languages such as Maori and Hawaiian), and in languages whose inventory of vowels is larger than its inventory of consonants.
Furthermore, in English some vowel sounds are represented by combinations of vowel letters, such as the ea in beat or by a vowel letter and an approximant letter, as the ow in how, or the er in her.
Encyclopedia: Vowel (1246 words)
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract, in contrast to consonants, which are characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract.
Vowels usually form the peak or nucleus of a syllable, whereas consonants form the onset and coda.
Vowels are especially important to the structures of words in languages that have very few consonants (like Pacific languages such as Maori and Hawaiian) and in languages whose inventory of vowels is larger than its inventory of consonants (like Sedang, a relative of Vietnamese, which contrasts 55 different vowel qualities).
  More results at FactBites »


 

COMMENTARY     


Share your thoughts, questions and commentary here
Your name
Your comments
Please enter the 5-letter protection code

Want to know more?
Search encyclopedia, statistics and forums:

 


Lesson Plans | Student Area | Student FAQ | Reviews | Press Releases |  Feeds | Contact
The Wikipedia article included on this page is licensed under the GFDL.
Images may be subject to relevant owners' copyright.
All other elements are (c) copyright NationMaster.com 2003-5. All Rights Reserved.
Usage implies agreement with terms.