"long" and "short" vowels

[M Covarrubias]

On Jun 17, 2009, at 5:21 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

>> Yes, long [a] interpreted *quantitatively* (often
>> represented as [a:] is pronounced with the same
>> tongue position as short "a", but just prolonged.
>
> So you're saying "mate" and "mat" vowels have the same tongue
> position (I think close but not same).  And you say "mate" vowel
> takes longer to say than "mat"

long [a] and short [a] refer to the same vowel quality but not the
same length in time. not the vowels in "mate" and "mat." the vowel in
"father". think of the brackets as your tilde, indicating a phonetic
symbol.

to exaggerate the distinction:

"father" = short, or normal [a]
"faaaaather" = long [a]

many teachers of elementary and high school mean something else when
they use "long" to describe a vowel. in those classrooms "long" refers
to vowel quality and has little to do with duration. "long" is a
holdover from hundreds of years ago (from an older form of english)
for vowels that used to be quantitatively longer, but have changed
quality and are now pronounced as they are.

the word "bathed" in modern english is pronounced with the diphthong
[eI]. many teachers call that a "long A"

chaucer would have pronounced "bathed" with the [a] of "father" but
not every [a] lasted as long. so 'bathed' had a long vowel, but not
what MY teachers meant when they used the phrase "long vowel."

so yes. among those speaking of the history of english "long vowel"
often refers to the form of english that exists no more.

many linguists study and describe languages in which length is
phonemic. so 'length' is a very helpful and natural label to use when
it's necessary to describe duration.

michael

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