Vowel Categories
This category is used to describe the relative level of muscle activity during vowel production and whether the vowel is more central or more towards the edges of the vowel space in English.
What is vowel tenseness (AKA tense or lax vowels)?
The vowels /ɑ/, /i/, /u/, and /ɔ/ all fall under this category.
What are long vowels?
This is a low front closing diphthong.
What is /aɪ/?
This vowel is the short, lax counterpart (i.e. shares the same height, anteriority and general lip shape) to /i/.
What is /ɪ/?
This is the longest part of a diphthong in English.
What is the onglide?
These are more specific categories for unrounded vowels.
What is neutral and spread?
These are rhotic monophthong vowels.
What are /ɝ/ and /ɚ/?
In this kind of diphthong, the tongue lowers during vowel production.
What is an opening diphthong?
This is a high back lax monophthong vowel.
What is /ʊ/?
This tongue shape is used to describe rhotic vowels.
What is concave?
This category is not phonemic in English and refers to the relative duration of a vowel.
What is vowel length?
These are all low vowels?
What are /æ/, /ʌ/, and /ɑ/?
In this kind of diphthong, the offglide portion of the vowel is longer than the onglide.
What is a rising diphthong?
These vowels are all rounded monophthong vowels.
What is /u/, /ʊ/, /ɔ/, and possibly /ɝ/ (varies speaker to speaker and word to word)?
This is used to represent "vowel space," i.e. the relative horizontal and vertical position of the tongue in the mouth during vowel production.
What is the vowel quadrilateral?
These vowels only occur in closed syllables in English, except for /ə/.
What are short vowels?
These are all mid monophthong vowels in English.
What is /ɛ/, /ɝ/, /ɚ/, /ə/, and /ɔ/? (/e/ and /o/ are used as starting positions in non-diphthongs or as their variants.)
This is a (mid) fronting-closing diphthong.
What is /ɔɪ/?
This vowel has the most amount of lip spreading in English.
What is /i/?
These are the minimal articulatory descriptors used by phoneticians to name monophthongs.
What is tongue height, tongue advancement, and lip shape (typically in that order)?
These vowels are characterized by tongue movement throughout vowel production and possibly a perceptual change in vowel quality.
What are diphthongs?
These are all central vowels.
What are /ɝ/, /ɚ/, /ə/, and /ʌ/?
These are non-phonemic diphthongs in English.
What are /oʊ/ and /eɪ/?
This vowel has the most amount of lip rounding in English.
What is /u/?
High vowels can also be called this interchangeably.
What is close?