Phonetics And Phonology Questions Medium
In phonetics, vowel length refers to the duration or length of a vowel sound. It is a distinctive feature that can change the meaning of words in certain languages. Vowel length is determined by the amount of time the vocal cords vibrate during the production of a vowel sound.
In many languages, including English, vowel length is not phonemically significant, meaning that it does not change the meaning of words. However, there are languages, such as Finnish and Japanese, where vowel length is phonemically contrastive, and it can distinguish between different words.
Vowel length can be categorized into two types: short vowels and long vowels. Short vowels are produced with a relatively shorter duration, while long vowels are produced with a longer duration. The duration of a vowel sound is measured in milliseconds.
The length of a vowel sound can be influenced by various factors, including stress, syllable structure, and surrounding consonant sounds. For example, in English, stressed vowels tend to be longer than unstressed vowels. Additionally, certain consonant sounds, such as voiced consonants, can lengthen the preceding vowel sound.
Vowel length can also have phonological implications. In some languages, vowel length can affect the overall rhythm and prosody of speech. For instance, in languages with a mora-based system, such as Japanese, the length of a vowel can determine the number of morae in a word, which in turn affects the word's rhythm and timing.
Overall, vowel length is an important aspect of phonetics as it can contribute to the phonemic inventory of a language and play a role in distinguishing between different words.