OPEN-MID BACK UNROUNDED VOWEL

The 'open-mid back unrounded vowel' is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is V. The IPA symbol is an inverted letter ''v'' and both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as either a wedge, a caret, or a hat. In transcriptions for some languages (including several dialects of English), this symbol is also used for the Near-open central vowel

Contents

Features

Occurrence

References

Features

★ Its vowel height is open-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel and a mid vowel.

★ Its vowel backness is back, which means the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.

★ Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
English (GA, eastern AmE, and Scottish)	''pl'u's''		'plus'	Less fronted than other dialects. See English phonology
Irish	'''o'la''		'oil'	See Irish phonology
Korean	벌		'punishment'
Russian	гол'о'ва		'head'	Occurs mostly immediately before stressed syllables. See Russian phonology
Vietnamese	''t'â'y''		'west'	See Vietnamese phonology

Before World War II, Received Pronunciation had as a phoneme; this sound has since shifted forward to . Despite this change, the symbol is still used^[1]. This may be due to both tradition as well as the fact that some other dialects retain the older pronunciation.

References

1. Course in Phonology, Roca, Iggy & Johnson, Wyn, , , Blackwell Publishing, 1999,