16 The MOUTH Lexical Set

A Closing Diphthong goes from wherever the nucleus starts to a close coda. The most common type of mouth vowel is a wide closing diphthong, where the nucleus of the diphthong is open [a ~ ɑ], which then off-glides up and back towards [ʊ̯], so we have [aʊ̯ ~ a̠ʊ̯ ~ ɑ̟ʊ̯ ~ ɑʊ̯]. There are many other variants for mouth: Bernd Kortmann’s Varieties of English lists 6 (!) variations 4 different diphthong and 2 monophthong options. There are also accents with allophonic variations—Canadian Raising being perhaps the most famous example of this—that have one version of mouth before a voiceless consonant, and a different version before a voiced consonant or vowel (sometimes called alternate keyword “proud,” named to parallel a similar change happening to the price lexical set, which goes by “pride/pried”).

mouth can be in both Free and Checked syllables, both stressed and unstressed.

• 🕊Free: does not require a following consonant, and can exist on its own, e.g. ow, bough=bow
• in stressed and unstressed syllables

Spellings

The mouth Lexical Set has no subgroups, unlike many other lexical sets; this means that if you can identify a mouth word, you’re probably on track! However, there is at least one allophonic variant, when mouth is followed by a voiceless consonant, so depending on the accent you’re working on you may have to pay attention to which version of the mouth set you’re using.

mouth: ‹ouC, ow, owC, ough›, as in out, how, crowd, bough

mouth historically comes from /u/ in Middle English, and the influence of French is where the ‹ou› spelling came from. This connection of /u/ and ‹ou› is maintained even today in words where that spelling is followed by labials /p, b/, followed by velars /k, ɡ/, or when it is preceded by /j/, as in words like group, troubadour, cougar, you, youth. There are no mouth words in these settings.

Pronunciations

The nucleus of the mouth lexical set can be pronounced with a broad range of vowels, either monophthongs or diphthongs. The majority of accents have a diphthong with an open, central vowel for its nucleus somewhere between [a] and [ɑ ], and an offglide moving back and up, heading in the general direction of /w/ with realizations that include /u̯ ~ ʊ̯ ~ ʉ̯ ~ o̯ ~ ɤ̯/. There are also some instances where the offglide goes towards a more central articulation of [ɨ̯ ~ ʉ̯], such as one hears in some Ulster accents, while London may have a mid-central offglide, [ə̯]. Varieties of the mouth diphthong nucleus include a raised and backed onset [ʌu̯ ~ ɔʊ̯]; a raised and centralized onset [əʊ̯], either in all settings, or just before a voiceless consonant; and a fronted onset, [æʊ̯ ~ æʉ̯ ~ æo̯ ~ ɛo̯] (or with alternate offglides, such as [æə̯] or [ɛɪ̯]). mouth monophthong varieties are either a low vowel [ a̠ ~ ɑ̟ ], or a mid/high back vowel [o].

The nucleus of mouth is usually further back than the nucleus of price, but not always. In cases where mouth’s nucleus is front and price’s is back, as we find in London, the West Country, New Jersey and Philadelphia accents, we have the price–mouth Crossover, as Wells dubbed it.

🍁 Canadian Raising is an allophonic variant of mouth before voiceless consonants, where the nucleus is “raised” towards a mid-central vowel, and the offglide is also a little more close: bout is [əu̯], as in out, house, south, while in all other settings, bowed/bow=bough is [a̟ʊ̯] as in cloud, to house (v.), to mouth (v.), allow. In North America, So-Called Canadian Raising, which includes a similar action on both price and mouth, doesn’t happen exclusively in Canada, though price raising on its own is more common in the US, and raising of both mouth and price is identified as being more distinctively Canadian. However, it also occurs in parts of the US coastal south, including parts of Virginia and South Carolina, such as in Charleston; also, there is evidence that mouth raising may be developing in New Orleans, Louisiana^[1].

Personal Pronunciation: Articulation Options

First let’s identify whether you have a monophthong, a diphthong, or possibly both. Say the following words slowly, and try to feel/hear whether your MOUTH vowel moves in a closing direction (generally up and backwards towards, though never reaching, /w/): now, how, browse, proud, arouse, house, south. Do you feel your tongue moving and the quality of the vowel changing?

Note that the diphthong is a movement of the tongue, a closing by raising the middle of your tongue up toward the (back part of) roof of your mouth. You may also feel some lip rounding on the offglide. If you do have a monophthong, you should feel like there is a single vowel quality, with no change at all, apart from a movement out of a preceding consonant, or into a following one where appropriate.

There is one other check we should do here: do you have Canadian Raising (whether you’re Canadian or not!) before a voiceless consonant? This occurs in some parts of North America. Let’s check:

+ voiceless C/ + voiced C: lout/loud, rout/rowed (argued), clout/cloud, pouter/powder, house (n.)/house (v.), souse/sows

The former will likely be shorter than the latter. Here is an occasion where a recording might make it easier to discern whether you have a diphthong on such a short vowel sound; a spectrogram might make it even easier, though you would want to be sure to speak both words on the same pitch, so that their melody doesn’t distract you from hearing whether there is a change in vowel quality.

Perhaps a simpler and more accessible option would be to video your mouth (or look in a mirror!) as you say these pairs: can you see your mouth closing, your tongue raising more on the first item in these pairs?

Monophthong or Closing Diphthong: Now that we’ve figured out whether you have a diphthong or a monophthong, let’s try to figure out what the specific vowel quality of your mouth monophthong, or the nucleus of your diphthong could be. Let’s start immediately and say “Now.” If it’s a diphthong, lengthen the nucleus, the beginning of the diphthong; if it’s a monophthong, just hang out there for a moment. If your pitch drops as you say it, it can help to intone the sound on one “note” or pitch so you don’t get distracted by the change of melody. You could use a word like “bow” (the front of a boat), or repeat the words above. Use an audio or video recorder to experiment on your own, or work with a teacher, coach, friend or classmate to identify how your mouth sound compares with someone else’s. Next, subtly adjust the beginning of mouth around in your vowel space (your mouth!) by very small movements —up, forwards, down, and back—before rising up to your offglide, if you have one. You should feel the top surface of the middle of your tongue moving delicately up and down as you experiment while keeping your tongue tip behind your lower front teeth. (There are more nerves at the front of the tongue, so it may be a little easier to figure out what’s going on here than on a back phoneme like goat or thought.) Notice how your tongue moves towards/away from your hard palate/velum and alveolar ridge, making more or less space near the front of your mouth.

⚠︎ If you have Canadian Raising, be sure to compare your vowel exploration below with a word that features either nothing after mouth, as in how, cow, allow, or a voiced consonant after mouth, as in loud, browse.

Back (and Rounded?) variation: Explore the vertical dimension with your lips rounding forward, from an unrounded [ɑ], or a rounded [ɑ̹], sliding through either unrounded [ɑ, ɑ, ɑ,   ʌ̞, ʌ, ʌ̝], or rounded [ɑ̹,   ɒ̞, ɒ, ɒ̝,   ɔ̞, ɔ, ɔ̝], etc., slowly moving higher and more close: can you find a starting place that matches your speech? Once you’ve locked onto it, rock up and down, above and below, more close, more open. Is this your starting spot? Compare mouth with unrounded trap and bath and palm (how does clout/cloud sound when followed by clap, class and balaclava?), and see how great the contrast is between the nuclei of these vowel sounds.

Unrounded Central variation: with your lips relaxed, explore the vertical dimension from [ə], sliding up towards [ə̝, ɘ̞, ɘ, ɘ̝, ɨ̞, ɨ, ɨ̝], slowly moving higher and more close. Then explore going lower, sliding down towards [ə̞, ɜ̝, ɜ, ɜ̞, ɐ̝, ɐ, ɐ̞], slowly moving lower and more open.Try to find where your mouth sound begins. Once you’re sure of where it is, shift the value of it up and down very slightly, above and below, more open, more close. Be confident in where yours is and isn’t. Compare mouth with unrounded strut and nurse (compare bout/bowed with butt/bud and Bert/bird), and with rounded thought and lot (compare lout/loud with caught/cawed and tot/Todd ), and see how great the contrast is between the nuclei of these vowel sounds.

Front Unrounded variation: with your lips relaxed, begin with your jaw open quite wide and your tongue “cupping” slightly at the front, [a] and then explore moving upwards towards [æ], and possibly even [ɛ]. On your way, you should slide through a number of qualities [a̞, a, a̝, æ̞, æ, æ̝, ɛ̞, ɛ, ɛ̝]. Try to ascertain where your mouth nucleus or monophthong begins. When you find that spot, test it out by moving it around in your vowel space through subtle up/down, front/back movements. Compare your mouth starting place with trap and dress (try out shout/shroud with shat/Shad and bout/bowed vs. bet/bed). How similar or different are they?

Offglide: Let’s turn our attention to the offglide, if you’ve got one. Where does mouth end? Due to the reduced quality of the offglide, which tends to be quieter, this is much harder to ascertain than the nucleus. When speakers focus on their offglide they often over-emphasize it; when they are being more emphatic, they may resort to a more extreme articulation of the offglide, and in distorting it, could easily miss the true nature of its vowel quality.

It might be worth recording some words, such as to house, to mouth, proud, cloud, vows at regular speed and then using software (such as the free Audacity app and the “Effect>Change Tempo…” menu item) to slow down the word in order to hear what’s going on. It’s always best to put the word you’re exploring in the middle of a phrase when you do this, as words at the beginning or end of a phrase can be affected by prosodic effects. Something like “The word ____ is interesting” should get you an undistorted pronunciation.

For closing diphthongs, this offglide vowel will be quite close, in the range of [ʊ̯, u̯, o̯, ɤ̯]. In some accents, the offglide is central, either unrounded [ɨ̯, ɘ̯, ə̯], or rounded [ʉ̯, ɵ̯,].

Transcribing mouth: Decide which vowel symbol best suits the nucleus of mouth in your speech, then:

If your mouth nucleus is… (use whichever vowel symbol above that is appropriate for you)

• high, use the raised diacritic [ a̝ ], a small T pointing up
• open, use the lowered diacritic [ ɑ̞ ], a small T pointing down
• pushed forward, use the advanced diacritic [ ɑ̟ ], a tiny plus sign +
• pulled back, use the retracted diacritic [ a̠ ], a tiny minus sign –
• having only minimal lip-rounding, use the unrounded diacritic to “reduce” a normally rounded symbol [ɒ̜] or the rounded diacritic to “enhance” a normally unrounded one [ɑ̹]

If you have a closing mouth diphthong, your coda/offglide may be rounded, or unrounded.

• close central unrounded, so use a barred lower-case i, [ ɨ̯ ]
• close central rounded, so use a barred lower-case u, [ ʉ̯ ]
• close back rounded, so use a lower-case u, [u̯]
• near-close near-back rounded, so use an upsilon [ʊ̯]
• mid-close central unrounded, so use a reversed e, [ ɘ̯ ]
• mid-close central rounded, so use a barred o, [ ɵ̯ ]
• mid-close back rounded, so use an o [o̯]
• mid central unrounded, so use a schwa, [ə̯]

Alternate Pronunciations

Experiment with the mouth Word Lists, Phrases and Sentences with the following mouth options:

As you move the vowels in these directions, see whether that modified oral posture might inspire you to move the articulation of consonants and other vowels in the word in similar ways. Does it remind you of an accent other than your own?

Word Lists for mouth in a Free Syllable, at the end of a word

KEY: ◾︎ mouth in stressed syllable ◽︎ mouth in unstressed syllable