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Vowel Space

From:Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...>
Date:Monday, October 27, 2008, 22:39
See also:
< http://conlanger.com/cbb/viewtopic.php?
p=37402&highlight=vowel+space#37402 >

I am trying to get a "picture" of "vowel space" in terms of distance
and "volume".

The idea is that any particular vowel-phoneme's allophones probably fill the
same "volume" as any other's, in the same language; and the "central" phones
of each phoneme must be a minimum distance from the central phones of any
other phoneme, in that language. Given a certain set of vowel-phonemes, the
central phones will probably "migrate" to make that volume, and that minimum
distance, as great as possible.

But I hypothesize that the "distance" between any two set phones, and
the "volume" filled by any given set of phones, will be roughly the same cross-
linguistically.

Does anyone know whether this has been mapped out already by anyone? And
where I can go to see it, if so?

I can use UPSID data to come up with my own approximation, but it's time-
consuming.

Reply

Matthew Turnbull <ave.jor@...>