Position of the tongue.

The bulk of the tongue conditions most of all the production of different vowels. It can move forward and backward, it may be raised and lowered in the mouth cavity.

a) According to horizontal movement they may be:

Front – articulated when the bulk of the tongue moves forward and its front part is raised highest towards the hard palate [i:, e, æ, e(i), e(ə)].

Front-retracted – produced with the front but a bit retracted position of the bulk of the tongue [i, i(ə)].

Central – formed by the central part of the tongue [ʌ, з:, ə, ə(υ)].

Back – formed with the bulk of the tongue in the back part of the mouth, when it is raised towards the junction between the hard and the soft parts of the palate [ɒ,ɔ:, u:, α:].

Back-advanced – formed with the back-advanced position of the bulk of the tongue [ʊ, υ(ə)].

b) According to vertical movement they may be: high (close) [i, ʊ]-[ i:, u:]; mid (half-open): [ə, ʌ]-[e, з:]; low (open): [æ, ɒ, α:]-[ ɔ:], which in their turn are subdivided into narrow and broad.

Position of the lips.

Rounded – the lips slightly rounded and protruded [ ɔ:, ɒ, ʊ, u:].

Unrounded – the lips are spread and neutral [i:, i, e, æ, α:, ʌ].

Degree of tenseness.

The term “tenseness” was introduced by H. Sweet. Traditionally long vowels are defined as tense and short vowels as lax. Tense vowels are articulated with the muscles of the lips, tongue, cheeks and the back wall of the pharynx made harder by tensing. In the articulation of lax vowels the muscular tension of the tongue, lips, and the walls of the resonating cavities is not as great as in the articulation of tense vowels.

Some phoneticians suggest subdivide vowels according to the character of the end into checked and free. When the intensity of the vowel does not diminish towards its end, vowel is checked:all short vowels in stressed position.

When the intensity of the vowel decreases towards its end, the vowel is free. All long monophthongs, diphthongs in stressed position and short monophthongs in unstressed position are free. This principle of vowel classifications is not singled out by British and American phoneticians.

Length.

According to the length English vowels are divided into (historically) long [i:, u:, ɔ:, α:, з:] and (historically) short [i, e, ʊ,ɒ,ʌ, ə, æ]. G.P. Torsuyev considers [æ] to be a long vowel, but he admits that in certain positions [æ] can be a short phoneme. English phoneticians state that it is a short one, though in some words it may be long. Vowel length depends on a number of linguistic factors:

1. Position of the vowel in a word. In the terminal position a vowel is the longest, it shortens before a voice consonant, it is the shortest before a voiceless consonant.

2. Word accent. A vowel is longer in an accented syllable, than in an unaccented one.

3. The number of syllables in a word. Vowels are shorter in polysyllabic words and longer in monosyllabic words.

4. The character of the syllabic structure. In words with V, CV, CCV type of syllable the vowel length is greater than in words with VC, CVC, and CCVC type of syllable.

5. Sonority. Vowels of low sonority are longer, than vowels of greater sonority. It is so, because the speaker unconsciously makes more effort to produce greater auditory effect while pronouncing vowels of lower sonority, thus making them longer.

Besides, vowel length depends on the tempo of speech: the higher the rate of speech the shorter the vowels.

D. Jones treats quantity independently of the vowel sounds themselves. Thus he treats [i:], [i] as positional allophones of one phoneme.

Length is a non-phonemic feature in English but it may serve to differentiate the meaning of a word: heat-hit.

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