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Length as a Phoneme in the German Vowel System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2016

Hugo Mueller
Hugo Mueller*
Affiliation:
Institute of Languages & Linguistics, Washington, D.C.
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Extract

It is customary to represent the German vowel system as consisting of seven short vowels / i / , / e / , / a / , / o / , /u/, / ö / , /ü/ and seven long vowels / i : / , / e : / , / a : / , / o : / , / u :/, / ö : / , / ü : /. In this analysis the short vowels have the phonetic value [I, ε, α, ɔ, U, œ, Y], whereas the long vowels are described as consisting of short vowel plus the phoneme / : /.

[: ] obviously does not only mean length, but it includes several features of quality, i.e. tenseness, fronting, and raising. It will be noted that the contrast tense-lax applies to every single pair: [i — I ] , [e — ε], [a — α], [o — ɔ], [u — U] [ö — œ], [ ü — Y].

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Spring 1958 , pp. 35 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association. 1958

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