Homework on Ladefoged (2005) Chapters 3 and 4.

Questions to answer

1. Defining "a vowel". At one point in Chapter 3, Ladefoged poses the rhetorical question "How many vowels are there in English?" and then goes on to say that the answer to the question depends on whether we are counting the vowel letters used to write English words or the vowel sounds. How does Ladefoged define "a vowel" -- meaning a vowel sound as opposed to the vowel letter or configuration of letters that might write the sound?
2. How many vowels of English? How many vowels does Ladefoged count for each of the dialects of English that he discusses in this chapter? What are the tables or figures where he provides the evidence for these counts?
3. Complicating factors. Ladefoged gives more than one number as the answer to question "How many vowels are there in English?" What is it about the English language that makes this necessary?
   Following up: Ladefoged says that, while most people are bilingual, "Speakers of English tend not to be, but many of them are bidialectal." Think about how he must be defining "Speakers of English" in order for this statement to be true. Does this statement apply to first language speakers of English in India, for example? What about second language speakers of English?
4. The most common vowel. Ladefoged also acknowledges that the evidence that he gives for the different counts of "How many vowels are there in English? leaves out the "most common vowel" in all of the dialects he discusses. What is that vowel?
   Following up: Why do you think he left it out in presenting the evidence for the counts he gives?
5. Languages with fewer vowels. At another point, Ladefoged lists several other languages where the number of vowel sounds is equal to the number of vowel letters. What are those languages? What evidence does he give for the vowel count?
6. A musical analogy. Chapter 4 is an introduction to the acoustic properties that differentiate contrasting vowel types such as the i category in English sea and heed versus the a in English father and hod. In describing these properties, Ladefoged uses the term overtones to make an analogy to the role of these same acoustic properties in distinguishing important musical categories. What are the musical categories that are distinguished?
7. Terminology and measures. Ladefoged also uses the terms resonances and formants as near synonyms for the overtones that we hear in vowels. How are these overtones (or "resonances" or "formants") evident in the very complex time plot that is in the lower graph in Figure 4.4? What is the relationship between the height of the bars in Figures 4.2 and 4.3 and this lower time plot in Figure 4.4?
8. Differences among vowels. How do the English vowels i (as in seek or heed) and æ (as in sack or had) differ when described in terms of their formants? What about the English vowels i (as in sea or Meese) versus u (as in sue or moose)?
9. Differences among languages. How does English u (as in moose and lunar) differ from Spanish u (as in musa 'muse' and luna 'moon') when described in terms of these formants?