SCHWA: Word of the Day #10 - November 4, 2005

schwa (n.)

Pronunciation: shwä

Definition: 1. A mid-central neutral vowel, typically occurring in unstressed syllables, as the final vowel of English sofa.

2. The symbol () used to represent an unstressed neutral vowel and, in some systems of phonetic transcription, a stressed mid-central vowel, as in the English but.

Heh heh. That just sounded funny. "The English but."

I was looking up all kinds of linguistic terms last night and stumbled upon this one, of which I was unaware. I've always wondered about that upside down e! And now we know! And knowledge is power!

I wonder, Sonia, if they'll have a schwa week at Kreider's school. ;-D

This word, I suppose, is a bit unuseful unless you're talking about vowels. Well, perhaps you should know more about them. At least then you'd have an excuse to use the word "schwa" in actual speech. And we're all looking to do that, aren't we?

You've noticed by now, perhaps, the large table below. It is a table of vowel sounds that I purloined from Wikipedia (actually, I am fully entitled to use this table and I have documentation). Let me explain it a bit.

Vowels
	front	near-front	central	near-back	back
close	i • y		ɨ • ʉ		ɯ • u
near-close		ɪ • ʏ		ʊ
close-mid	e • ø		ɘ • ɵ		ɤ • o
mid			É™
open-mid	ɛ • œ		ɜ • ɞ		ʌ • ɔ
near-open	æ		ɐ
open	a • ɶ				ɑ • ɒ

This table is meant to diagram where and how vowel sounds are created in the International Phonetic Alphabet, by describing the positionings of the tounge and mouth. It is incredibly complex and mind-boggling if you actually sit down and try to memorize it (the IPA lives for confusion, I think).

I will go over, briefly, the characteristics of this table, mainly because that's as far as I understand them. If you feel inclined, please feel free to click around the actual table).

Sounds are distinguished by formants, which are the preferred resonating frequencies of any acoustical system (in this case, the human mouth). It is formants that secern between speaking and singing. In short, just how you make a sound. We will concentrate simply on the vowel sounds and their formants.

There seem to be three defining characteristics (or formants) of a vowel sound: vowel height, vowel backness, and vowel roundedness. The first formant (F1) is vowel height: the positioning of the tongue in relation to the roof of the mouth. A close vowel height means getting the tongue as close to the roof of the mouth without creating a consonant. An open vowel height is when the tongue remains low in the mouth. Close vowel are often called high vowels and result in vowel sounds such as mine, die, sky and others. The IPA defines seven different vowel heights (open, near-open, open-mid, mid, close-mid, near-close, and close) though no language distinguishes all of them. The schwa is the ONLY mid vowel identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet. GO SCHWA!!!!
The second formant (F2) is vowel backness: the position of the tongue in relation to the back of the mouth (these terms are becoming apparent in their nomination, eh?). A front vowel backness means getting the tongue as far forward as possible (again, without creating a consonant). A back vowel backness means quite the opposite, as you might imagine. The IPA identifies five degrees of vowel backness (front, near-front, central, near-back, and back).
The third formant, I believe (though the encyclopedia I am using for reference does not define this as being the third formant), is vowel roundedness: the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. Rounded vowels are created by forming a circular opening, while unrounded vowels are created through relaxed lips. In most languages, front vowels tend to be unrounded, while back vowels are rounded; certain languages (e.g. French and German) distinguish between rounded and unrounded vowels at the same height and backness. In the table, the vowels that are in the boxes are listed as unrounded and rounded, respectively, separated by a little dot. For instance, the close front vowels are "i" and "y," separated by a tiny dot.
There are two ways of creating a rounded vowel: endolabial and exolabial. Endolabial rounding occurs when you draw the corners of the mouth slightly in to form an O with your mouth, but without protruding your lips (as with your jaw dropping in shock). Only the outer part of the lips are exposed. Exolabial rounding occurs when you draw the corners in, but push out your lips, as in kissing. The inner surface of the lips is exposed. Ellen, you'll be happy to hear that Swedish is an unusual language, making a phonemic distinction between exolabial and endolabial forms of close-mid front unrounded vowels. Apparently this is an unusual phonemic distinction. As with much of this, I have no idea what that means.

This is all so stuffy, but it's nice to know there's a very clear, scientific understanding of language. It's a wonderful intersection of physics and English and I'm very much interested in it.

Well, I had fun, anyway. Though I really ought to sleep at some point. Grading may have been a more productive use of my time, but I know this was more educational.

I've created links for the top row (vowel backness) and the left column (vowel height), so please click on them just to make me feel better. The actual vowel sounds in the chart are links as well, though some of the symbols did not show up in my humble, little journal.

If you're interested, here is a list of phonetics topics to browse at your heart's content.








post script: does anyone know anything about this GNU Free Documentation License? Joseph Price, Mark LeVota, DeCelles? Are you guys out there? I know you'd know. Frère Jacques, tu sais ce que je veux dire?