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Open central vowel

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IPA Number324 430

The open central vowel is a vowel that has no dedicated symbol in the IPA 2015 chart.[1]

IPA symbol

Nearby symbols and their modification by use of diacritics

The five nearest symbols in the chart that can be used to approximate an open central vowel:

  • the symbol for a central vowel more close than mid-close, can be combined with the symbol 403 "lowered"
    • near-open central vowel, ɐ. Can be combined to lowered near-open central vowel ɐ̞. It contains no information about rounding.
  • the four symbols for the open vowels, which can be combined with the symbol 415 "centralized"
Open central vowel - the five nearest symbols
Front Centralized front Central Centralized back Back
ɐ
ɐ̞
a, ɶ ä, ɶ̈ ɑ̈, ɒ̈ ɑ, ɒ

2008 proposal to assign a dedicated IPA symbol

In 2008 William J. Barry and Jürgen Trouvain from the Institute of Phonetics, Saarland University, Saarbrücken published a paper that analyzed the lack of any dedicated symbol for any open central vowel, this was published in JIPA 38(2). [2]

Two solutions address roundedness:

  1. "barred a analogous to the ‘central close’ vowels. To maintain consistency for the central vowel series, a barred ɒ could be defined for the rounded version".
  2. "The capital [ᴀ] suggestion [...] does have a substantial following in the community and is explicitly mentioned in Pullum & Ladusaw (1996: 14) as being ‘occasionally used as a symbol for a fully open central unrounded vowel’."

Two responses have been in JIPA 39(2), one by Daniel Recasens [3] and one by Martin J. Ball [4].

Recasens objects to the idea of establishing a dedicated symbol. Ball mainly addressed the proposed solutions and rejected the proposal to reassign symbols and favoured [ᴀ] for the unrounded open central vowel, in case a new symbol would have to be adopted.

A response from Barry and Trouvain was published in JIPA 39(3). [5]

2011 IPA Council decision

The first voting in 2011 was positive 8 to 7. Another vote took place in December 2011 on the text

"I agree with the adoption of [ᴀ] (small-cap A) as the IPA symbol for the central open vowel, to be placed on the IPA chart under 'Other symbols'."

It was rejected with 17 no, 12 yes, 1 abstention[6] The proposal that was voted on does not mention roundedness, despite the fact that for the front and back open vowel there are two pairs, containing a symbol for rounded and unrounded each. The IPA states that the discussion was about "central open (unrounded) vowel".[7]

References

  1. ^ https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f528/e439fc61bb20eff6525eff6110d8e287b560.pdf
  2. ^ Journal of the International Phonetic Association (2008) 38/3 doi:10.1017/S0025100308003587 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f528/e439fc61bb20eff6525eff6110d8e287b560.pdf
  3. ^ https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100309003909, Published online: 10 July 2009, pp. 231-233 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231835240_Response_to_W_J_Barry_J_Trouvain_Do_we_need_a_symbol_for_a_central_open_vowel_JIPA_38_2008_349-357
  4. ^ https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100309003910, Published online: 10 July 2009, pp. 233-234 http://pagines.uab.cat/danielrecasens/sites/pagines.uab.cat.danielrecasens/files/Barry%20&%20Trouvain.pdf
  5. ^ "Do we need a symbol for a central open vowel? The discussion so far and a reply to Daniel Recasens and Martin Ball" by William J. Barry and Jürgen Trouvain, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100309990235
  6. ^ https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/news/201112/ipa-council-votes-against-new-symbol
  7. ^ https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/news/201112/ipa-council-votes-against-new-symbol
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