Information AboutVowel Roundedness |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT ROUNDEDNESS | |
| vowels | |
| labial consonants | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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In Phonetics , vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the Lip s during the articulation of a Vowel . That is, it is vocalic Labialization . When pronouncing a ''rounded'' vowel, the lips form a circular opening, while ''unrounded'' vowels (also called ''spread'' vowels) are pronounced with the lips relaxed. In most languages, Front Vowel s tend to be unrounded, while Back Vowel s tend to be rounded. But some languages, such as French and German , distinguish rounded and unrounded front vowels of the same Height , while Vietnamese distinguishes rounded and unrounded back vowels of the same height. When consonanants are rounded, they are called Labialized . In the International Phonetic Alphabet vowel chart, rounded vowels are the ones that occur on the right in each pair of vowels. There are also diacritics, respectively , to indicate greater or lesser degrees of rounding. The 'more' and 'less rounded' diacritics are sometimes also used with consonants to indicate degrees of labialization. For example, in the Athabaskan Language Hupa , Voiceless Velar Fricative s distinguish three degrees of labialization, transcribed either or . The Extended IPA has two additional symbols for degrees of rouding: Spread and open-rounded . TYPES OF ROUNDING There are two types of vowel rounding: endolabial, or ''compressed'', and exolabial, or ''protruded''. In endolabial rounding, the corners of the mouth are drawn slightly together and the lips may be compressed horizontally, but the lips do not protrude and only their outer surface is exposed. In exolabial rounding, the lips protrude like a tube, as when Kiss ing; the inner surface of the lips is exposed. Usually, back rounded vowels are exolabial, while front rounded vowels are endolabial. However, in Japanese , the back high vowel is endolabial. Swedish is unusual in that dialects of it make a Phonemic distinction between the two types, having unrounded, endolabial, and exolabial front Close-mid Vowel s. Some varieties of Dutch make the same distinction. There is no dedicated IPA diacritic to represent this contrast, and without disambiguation both the word "rounded" and the symbols for the rounded vowels are understood to refer to exolabial rounding. The northern Iroquoian Languages have no Labial Consonant s. They do have , , and , but these do not involve noticeable rounding (protrusion) of the lips. It may be that they are purely Velar , but it is also possible that they are compressed. It is not known how this might relate to the labialization distinction in Hupa . SEE ALSO
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