Vowel production

[no-one-particular]

The tense vowels in beet, boat, & burt are what I call tones. These change into the tense vowels bait, boot, & bot respectively when something in the vocal appatatus changes. (Each of these 6 vowels has a lax equivalent).

Can anyone tell me what that change is? What is the tongue doing differently in bait than it is in beet?

 

[steve_bank]

Speak skolwy and be aware of what your tongue is doing?

I expect there are books and papers on it.

To be pedantic, a rock has moving parts, electrons in orbits and atones vibrating in place.

 

[Swammerdami]

This chart —  IPA vowel chart with audio — contains all six vowels you menton and more. Click an arrow to hear the vowel. Wiki goes into further, excruciating detail in its  Vowel article.

 

[steve_bank]

Speak skolwy and be aware of what your tongue is doing?

I expect there are books and papers on it.

To be pedantic, a rock has moving parts, electrons in orbits and atones vibrating in place.

{psted the alst line on the wrong thread.

 

[Copernicus]

The tense vowels in beet, boat, & burt are what I call tones. These change into the tense vowels bait, boot, & bot respectively when something in the vocal appatatus changes. (Each of these 6 vowels has a lax equivalent).

Can anyone tell me what that change is? What is the tongue doing differently in bait than it is in beet?

Your initial statement is somewhat confusing to me, because "tone" generally refers to pitch. The same vowel, whether tense or lax, can be pronounced with a high or low pitch, e.g. when you sing them. And I don't really get what you mean by "when something in the vocal apparatus changes". What kind of change are you talking about?

The big difference between tense and lax vowels is that the bulk of the tongue mass is in a more centralized position for lax vowels, and they tend to be shorter in duration. Tense vowels are pronounced with the tongue mass further away from a centralized or rest position, and they tend to be longer in duration.

 

[lpetrich]

What you are looking for is  Formant - "In speech science and phonetics, a formant is the broad spectral maximum that results from an acoustic resonance of the human vocal tract."

Our vocal cords do not produce one frequency of sound, but several, with frequencies that are approximate integer multiples of the lowest or fundamental frequency. This is much like what pitched instruments do, like string and wind instruments.

The sound gets filtered as it exits through the mouth, and one can change the resonant frequencies of one's mouth by reshaping it by moving one's tongue and lips. Those frequencies are the format, and the first two, F1 and F2, for an adult male voice are:

• /i/ 240, 2400 Hz
• /a/ 850, 1610 Hz
• /u/ 250, 595 Hz

 

[lpetrich]

From  Voice frequency

Which	Lo	Hi	Lo (Hz)	Hi (Hz)
Female	E3	C4	165	255
Male	F2	D#3/Eb3	85	155

From  Vocal range - classical-music voice ranges:

Which	Gender	Lo	Hi	Lo (Hz)	Hi (Hz)
Soprano	F	C4	C6	261.6256	1046.502
Mezzo-soprano:	F	A3	A5	220.0000	880.0000
Contralto	F	F3	E5	174.6141	659.2551
Tenor	M	B2	A4	123.4708	440.0000
Baritone	M	G2	F4	97.99886	349.2282
Bass	M	E2	E4	82.40689	329.6276

I used  Piano key frequencies

 

[no-one-particular]