The terms
checked vowel and
free vowel originated in
English phonetics and phonology; they are seldom used for the description of other languages, even though a distinction between vowels that usually have to be followed by a consonant and other vowels is common in most
Germanic languages. The terms
checked vowel and
free vowel correspond closely to the terms
lax vowel and tense vowel, respectively, but linguists often prefer to use the terms
checked and
free, as there is no clear-cut phonetic definition of vowel tenseness, and, because by most given definitions of tenseness, and are considered lax—even though they behave in
American and
British English as free vowels. The term
checked vowel is also useful in the description of English spelling. As free written vowels
a,
e,
i,
o,
u correspond to the spoken vowels , , , , ; as checked vowels
a,
e,
i,
o,
u correspond to , , , , . In spelling free and checked vowels are often called long and short, based on their historical pronunciation, though nowadays some or all of the free vowels are diphthongs, depending on the dialect, not long vowels as such. Written consonant doubling often shows the vowel is checked; the
i of
dinner corresponds to checked because of the double consonants
nn; the
i of
diner corresponds to free because of the single consonant
n. This, however, interferes with the
differences in doubling rules between American and British styles of spelling. Similarly, an "
e" following a single consonant at the end of a word often indicates that the preceding vowel is free where it would otherwise be checked; for example, the
a of
tap corresponding to whereas that in
tape corresponds to .
Checked vowels Checked vowels is also used to refer to the kind of very short glottalized vowels heard in the
Zapotecan languages of
Oaxaca,
Mexico, that contrast with
laryngealized vowels. The term
checked vowel is also used to refer to a short vowel followed by a
glottal stop in
Mixe, which has a distinction between two kinds of glottalized syllable nuclei: checked ones, with the glottal stop after a short vowel, and nuclei with rearticulated vowels, a long vowel with a glottal stop in the middle. In English, the checked vowels are the following: • as in
pit • as in
pet • as in
pat • as in
pot (in varieties without the
cot–caught merger or the
father–bother merger) • as in
put (in varieties without the
foot–goose merger) • as in
putt There are a few exceptions, mostly in
interjections:
eh and
meh with ;
duh,
huh,
uh,
uh-uh, and
uh-huh with ;
nah with or ; and
yeah with (in accents that lack the diphthong ) or . There are also the
onomatopoeia baa for and the loanword
pho for when pronounced in
American English, as well as sometimes
milieu and
pot-au-feu. The proper names
Graham and
Flaherty are sometimes pronounced with a prevocalic .
Free vowels The free vowels are the following: • as in
pea • as in
pay • as in
Pooh • as in
Poe • as in
paw • as in
Pa • as in
pie • as in
plow • as in
ploy Other vowels The
schwa (comm) is usually considered neither free nor checked because it cannot stand in stressed syllables. In non-rhotic dialects, non-prevocalic instances of as in
purr, burr and as in
letter, banner pattern as vowels, with the former often being the long counterpart of the latter and little to no difference in quality: . In rhotic dialects, they pattern as vowel+consonant sequences, following the historical situation, even though they often surface as rhotacized vowels: (or, in other analyses, syllabic postalveolar/retroflex approximants: etc.). The same applies to , and , which are realized as centering diphthongs or long monophthongs in non-rhotic varieties of English, but as vowel+consonant sequences (alternative analysis: centering diphthongs with a rhotacized offset) in rhotic English. ==See also==