Near-front vowel
A near-front vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-front vowel is that the tongue is positioned slightly further back in the mouth as in a front vowel, but not as back as in a central vowel. In practice, what are analyzed phonemically as rounded front vowels are typically near-front in their actual articulation.
Near-front vowels are sometimes called front-central, centralized front, retracted front or advanced central.
Near-front vowels are essentially a type of front vowels; no language is known to contrast a near-front vowel with a front vowel and a central vowel based on backness alone.
Partial list
The near-front vowels that have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
There also are near-front vowels that don't have dedicated symbols in the IPA:
- near-close near-front protruded vowel [ʏʷ] (ʏ̫)
Other near-front vowels can be indicated with diacritics of relative articulation applied to letters for neighboring vowels, such as ⟨i̠⟩, ⟨ɪ̝⟩ or ⟨ɨ̟⟩ for a close near-front unrounded vowel.
Bibliography
- International Phonetic Association (1999), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-65236-7
