Secondary cardinal vowels

Secondary cardinal vowels have the same tongue postures as primary cardinal vowels, but they reverse the lip posture. So secondary CV1, [y], has the tongue height and frontness of CV1, [i], but it has the rounding of its opposite number, [u]. This is close to vowel in the French word ‘tu’, [ty], ‘you’; or the sound written  in German. Vowels like [y] occur in English, especially in [ju] sequences in words like ‘use’, ‘computer’, ‘you’, which we could more narrowly transcribe with [jy].

Secondary CV2, [ø], has the tongue height and frontness of CV2, [e], but the rounding of [o], which is the same height, but is back not front and rounded. It is close to the French vowel in the word ‘feu’, [fø], ‘fire’; or the German sound written  . Vowels like [ø] occur in some varieties of English: for example, in broad Australian English and in some northern Anglo-English varieties, the vowel in words like ‘bird’ is often close to [ø]. In New Zealand, the vowel in this set of words is transcribed as [ɵ] and described as a front or central close-mid rounded vowel.

Conversely, secondary CV8, [ɯ], has the tongue height and backness of [u], but the spread lips of [i], and secondary CV7,  , has the tongue height and backness of [o], but the spread lip posture of [e].

There are two other vowels between CV1 and CV8,  and  . These represent close central unrounded and rounded vowels respectively. Vowels like these are not ones we expect to find in stressed syllables in English, but they are rather common in conversational productions of the word ‘because’. It is often pronounced ‘bec[ɒ]se’,‘bec[ə]se’, ‘bec  se’,  or ‘bec  se’.

Many varieties have a rather front vowel in words like goose: even in varieties where this vowel is by convention transcribed [u], the sound is often closer to [y] than to [u]. The symbol  represents a rounded vowel half way between the two: a close central rounded vowel. This symbol is commonly used in representing the goose vowel of Australian and New Zealand English. Many varieties of English (including Scottish and North American) use a similar, but unrounded, vowel for the close unstressed vowel in words like ‘fittd’, ‘closs’: other varieties, such as RP, use a fronter vowel, [I], in this position.

Many varieties of English (including RP, some Canadian varieties, Australia and New Zealand) have a back open rounded vowel, [ɒ], for the vowel of ‘hot’; and the vowel of ‘strut’ is frequently transcribed as , the unrounded sister of CV6, [ɔ].