The open-mid back unrounded vowel, or low-mid back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Acoustically it is an open-mid back-central unrounded vowel.[1] The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʌ⟩, graphically a rotated lowercase vee (called a turned V, though it was created as a small-capital ⟨ᴀ⟩ without the crossbar), and both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as either a wedge, a caret, or a hat. In transcriptions for some languages (including Danish and several dialects of English), this symbol is also used for the near-open central vowel.
The IPA prefers the terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, linguists[who?] are known to use the terms "high" and "low".
Features
Occurrence
Language |
Word |
IPA |
Meaning |
Notes |
English |
Cape Town |
lot |
[lʌ̟t] |
'lot' |
Near-back. It corresponds to a weakly rounded [ɒ̈] in all other South African dialects. |
Natal |
Cardiff[3] |
thought |
[θʌ̟ːt] |
'thought' |
Near-back,[3] for some speakers it may be rounded and closer. See English phonology |
Cockney |
no |
[nʌ̟ː] |
'no, nah' |
Near-back, often a diphthong. It corresponds to /əʊ̯/ in other dialects. See English phonology |
General South African |
[nʌː] |
May be a diphthong [ʌʊ̯] instead. |
Inland Northern American[7] |
gut |
[ɡʌt] (help·info) |
'gut' |
In most dialects, fronted to [ɜ], or fronted and lowered to [ɐ]. See English phonology and Northern Cities Vowel Shift |
Multicultural London |
Newfoundland |
Older Received Pronunciation |
Philadelphia |
Scottish |
German |
Chemnitz dialect |
machen |
[ˈmʌχɴ̩] |
'to do' |
Allophone of /ʌ, ʌː/ (which phonetically are central [ɜ, ɜː]) before and after /ŋ, kʰ, k, χ, ʁ/. Exact backness varies; it is most posterior before /χ, ʁ/. See Chemnitz dialect phonology |
Haida |
[qʰwʌʔáːj] |
'the rock' |
Allophone of /a/ (sometimes also /aː/) after uvular and epiglottal consonants. |
Irish |
Ulster dialect |
ola |
[ʌl̪ˠə] |
'oil' |
See Irish phonology |
Kaingang |
[ˈɾʌ] |
'mark' |
Varies between back [ʌ] and central [ɜ]. |
Korean |
별/byeol |
[pjʌl] |
'star' |
See Korean phonology |
Lillooet |
[example needed] |
|
|
Retracted counterpart of /ə/. |
Tamil |
[example needed] |
|
|
Nasalized. Phonetic realization of the sequence /am/, may be [õ] or [ã] instead. See Tamil phonology |
Before World War II, the /ʌ/ of Received Pronunciation was phonetically close to a back vowel [ʌ]; this sound has since shifted forward towards [ɐ] (a near-open central unrounded vowel). Daniel Jones reports his speech (southern British), as having an advanced back vowel [ʌ̟] between his central /ə/ and back /ɔ/; however, he also reports that other southern speakers had a lower and even more advanced vowel approaching cardinal [a]. In American English varieties, e.g. the West and Midwest, and the urban South, the typical phonetic realization of the phoneme /ʌ/ is an open-mid central unrounded vowel [ɜ]. Truly backed variants of /ʌ/ that are phonetically [ʌ] can occur in Inland Northern American English, Newfoundland English, Philadelphia English, some African-American Englishes, and (old-fashioned) white Southern English in coastal plain and Piedmont areas. Despite this, the letter ⟨ʌ⟩ is still commonly used to indicate this phoneme, even in the more common varieties with central variants [ɐ] or [ɜ]. This may be due to both tradition as well as the fact that some other dialects retain the older pronunciation.
References
Bibliography
- Coupland, Nikolas (1990), English in Wales: Diversity, Conflict, and Change, ISBN 1-85359-032-0<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Gimson, Alfred Charles (2014), Cruttenden, Alan (ed.), Gimson's Pronunciation of English (8th ed.), Routledge, ISBN 9781444183092<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Gordon, Matthew (2004a), "New York, Philadelphia and other Northern Cities", in Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W. (eds.), A Handbook of Varieties of English: Volume 1: Phonology, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 294–296, ISBN 3-11-017532-0<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Gordon, Matthew (2004b), "The West and Midwest: phonology", in Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W. (eds.), A Handbook of Varieties of English: Volume 1: Phonology, Walter de Gruyter, p. 340, ISBN 3-11-017532-0<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2009), "Fonologia e prosódia do Kaingáng falado em Cacique Doble", Anais do SETA, Campinas: Editora do IEL-UNICAMP, 3: 675–685<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Jones, Daniel (1972), An outline of English phonetics (9th ed.), Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Keane, Elinor (2004), "Tamil", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 111–116, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001549<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Khan, Sameer ud Dowla; Weise, Constanze (2013), "Upper Saxon (Chemnitz dialect)" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (2): 231–241, doi:10.1017/S0025100313000145<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Lass, Roger (2002), "South African English", in Mesthrie, Rajend (ed.), Language in South Africa, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521791052<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Lawrence, Erma (1977), Haida dictionary, Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Lee, Hyun Bok (1999), "Korean", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 120–122, ISBN 0-521-63751-1<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Ní Chasaide, Ailbhe (1999). "Irish". Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge University Press. pp. 111–116. ISBN 0-521-63751-1.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Roca, Iggy; Johnson, Wyn (1999), Course in Phonology, Blackwell Publishing<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Scobbie, James M; Gordeeva, Olga B.; Matthews, Benjamin (2006), Acquisition of Scottish English Phonology: an overview, Edinburgh: QMU Speech Science Research Centre Working Papers<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Thomas, Erik R. (2001), "An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English", Publication of the American Dialect Society, Duke University Press for the American Dialect Society, 85, ISSN 0002-8207<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Tillery, Jan; Bailey, Guy (2004), "The urban South: phonology", in Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W. (eds.), A Handbook of Varieties of English: Volume 1: Phonology, Walter de Gruyter, p. 333, ISBN 3-11-017532-0<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Wells, J.C. (1982a). "Accents of English 2: The British Isles". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Wells, J.C. (1982b). Accents of English 3: Beyond the British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-28541-0.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
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