Vowels

I.          Types of Vowels:

1. The UPSID database contains 2632 vowels: 2549 monophthongal vowels and 83 diphthongal vowels.

2. Three conventional parameters for vowel description: a. height, b. backness,

  c. lip-rounding. 

3. Table 8.1 Broad classification of types of vowels in UPSID:

Number of vowels: mid range（1032）＞high（994）＞low（523）

                    front（1019）＞back（964）＞central（566）

        Among the high vowels: front（481）＞ back（448）＞central（65）

        Among the mid range vowels: back（467）＞front（457）

4. Table 8.2 Most common vowel qualities:

/i, a, u/ are the most widespread because they each lie at an acoustic extreme.

    Number of languages with : /i/＞/a/＞/u/

II.       Number of vowels per language

1. The smallest number of phonemic vowels in the UPSID language is 3（e.g.

Kabardian (911)）, the largest is 24（e.g. !Xữ (918)）, and the modal number is 5.

2. A small number of vowels may not predicts a large number of consonant contrasts.

III.   Distinctive vowel qualities

1. Many languages have several series of vowels: e.g. short vs. long, oral vs. nasal,

  and plain voiced vs. laryngealized.

2. Mostly, the vowels in one series can be matched with vowels that are similar in

quality in other series, so the number of vowel phonemes ＞ the number of different vowel qualities.

E.g. Mazatec (727)

        Oral vowels /i, ε, a, o/ vs. nasalized vowels /ĩ, ε˜ , ã, õ/

（8 vowel phonemes but 4 vowel qualities）

3. In other languages, there may be qualities in one series which do not occur outside

that series.

      E.g. Zande (130) has /ē,õ/ but not /e, o/

4. Summary from Table 8.4-Number of vowel qualities:

The smallest number of vowel qualities in the UPSID languages is 3（e.g. Amuesha (824) & Jaqaru (820)）, the largest is 15（German (004) & Norwegian (006)）, and the modal number is 5.

IV.    Properties of vowel series

The most important of the properties that distinguish vowel series from each other are length and nasalization.

1. Length

-There are three types of situations where vowel length is represented in the phoneme inventory.

a. Long and short vowel sets do not overlap in quality.

E.g. Kurdish (015)

b. Some vowels in each set have the same quality.

E.g. Tonkawa (752)

c. The qualities of the longer vowels are a subset of the qualities of the shorter vowels or vice versa.

E.g. Atayal (407) & Yurak (056)

              -The probability of length being part of the vowel system increases with the number of vowel quality contrasts.

2. Nasalization

-Nasalization is more common than length in the UPSID languages.

-The most common nasalized vowels:

   / ĩ/ (59 languages)＞ / ã(:)/ (58) ＞ /ǔ(:)/(55)

-There is a general pattern: nasalized vowel frequency is generally correlated with the frequency of the oral equivalent.

3. Other properties of vowel sets: pharyngealization, laryngealization and breathy voice.

-Languages with pharyngealized vowels:

 Evenki(067), Neo-Aramaic(255), Hamer(265), Lak(912) and !Xǔ(918).

-Languages with laryngealized vowels:

 Sedang(304) and S. Nambiquara(816).

-Language with breathy voice: Tamang(507).

V.       Diphthongs

-The UPSID database contains 83 diphthongal vowels from 23 languages.

        -Number of diphthongs in UPSID languages

         -Table 8.6 Common diphthongs

            Diphthongs show a preference for including a high vowel element.