Phonology of English

Depending on the position of the tongue in the mouth, one distinguishes back, front and indeterminate  vowels:

Back and front vowels oppose themselves by the back and front positions of the tongue within the mouth; indeterminate vowels have an indeterminate position (neither back nor front).

The difference between â and a is the one which differentiates the following French minimal pairs: tâche/tache (task vs. stain); pâte/patte (pastry vs. paw).

Depending on the course of the tongue in the mouth, one distinguishes centrifugal and centripetal vowels:

The course relates to the movement of the tongue in the mouth: it is centripetal when the tongue moves to the center of the mouth; it is centrifugal when the tongue leaves the center of the mouth.

Centripetal vowels converge toward the ə sound; on the other side, back and front centrifugal vowels respectively diverge toward the u and i sounds.

Trubetzkoy shows that the o, e, u and i vowels are vowels whose (centrifugal or centripetal) course is interrupted which means without any course:

These vowels whose course is interrupted are the results of an abrupt cut of the syllable correlation (Cf. Principes de phonologie page 208). This break may however only appear in stressed closed syllables.

English prosody stresses each two syllables: in polysyllabic words, one distinguishes stressed syllables of varying intensity (primary, secondary, etc.) alternating with unstressed syllables. A syllable is stressed if it receives a higher intensity than the syllable that precedes or follows it.

A syllable is closed when its syllabic center is followed by any closing movement which means any consonant when it does not belong to the syllabic center like in English the consonant r which belongs to the syllabic center of English and cannot interrupt any long vowel.

When we speak, the mouth opens and closes while lung air blasts jerkily through the mouth; the syllable is the smallest unit of breath.

This is at the level of the syllables that can be heard acoustic variations of three types: intensity, duration and melody.

Measured in decibels, the intensity is the pressure of the air; measured in hertz, the melody is the modulation of the air through the vocal cords; measured in milliseconds, the duration is the length of the air passing through the mouth.

Troubetzkoy is calling syllabic center the part of the syllable that receives the modulations of intensity, melody and duration; he shows that the syllabic center consists of a vowel and that for some languages the vowel may be followed by a nasal or a liquid consonant: which is the case of English whose syllabic center can hold the liquid r.

The liquid consonants (whose noise is like the rustle of a flowing liquid) are the consonants whose closure is the lowest.

The syllabic center of English can be a vowel but also a vowel followed by the liquid consonant r but with two restrictions:

1. As their course is interrupted, the vowels o, e, u et i cannot be followed by r.

2. Before r, the vowel opposition between centripetal and centrifugal is neutralized for the sole benefit of the centripetal vowels. (cf. Principes de phonologie page 252.)

When it belongs to the syllabic center, the consonant r is superscript. Thus, the English word « rare » is phonologically noted re^ər and not re^ər!