Cardinal vowels
Idealized vowels, important is their location in the graph
Lax vowels
Pronounced less extreme and more towards the center
Tense vowels
Usually requires more force, tenseness to come out of the mouth (cardinal vowels, extreme pronunciation)
Vowels
Length and tenseness go together. Short and lax vowels goes together
Monopthongs
One sound, stationary
Diphthongs
Glides, two sounds using a starting and end point
Rhoticity
Pronouncing the /r/ in its fullness
Non-rhoticic
Accents dropping the /r/ sound in very specific situations: a non prvocatic position
Linking /r/
If the next word begins with a vowel in a non-rhotic language the /r/ remains and is pronounced
Intrusive /r/
If the word looks like it may have an unpronounced /r/ in it it is pronounced as non-rhotic speakers are bad at placing their /r/s
Disappearance of /r/
Results in a centered diphtong ending in a schwa or a long vowel sound
Lexical sets
Sets of words that have the same vowel across accents of english (RP or GA)
Feature theory
Binary answer to whether a sound features something; yes/no = +/-
Continuants
Sounds produced without completely blocking oral cavity (+) (stop sounds are -)
Sonorants
Sounds that are primarily produced with vocal fold vibration (able to hold this pitch while singing)
Coronal
Sounds for which tip of the tongue or blade is raised above its natural position
Anterior
Sounds articulated at or in front of the alveolar ridge
Vowel features
high/low (+/-)
Back/front (+/-)
Round (+/-)
Tense (+/-)
Reduced (+/-)
Descriptive feature
+ quality of feature
Constrastive feature
- quality of feature
Inherent redundancy
Some features do not go together naturally, no need to say the other then (+ high / + low, impossible)
Occurant redundancy
Sounds that do not occur in a particular language
