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light87

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Hi all teachers.In this definition "In phonetics, an R-colored or rhotic vowel (also called a vocalic R or a rhotacized vowel) is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant.".I don't understand why R is vowel? and what is the meaning of third formant.Thank you.
 

birdeen's call

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The answer to your question depends on what you mean by R. The sound /r/ is not a vowel and neither is /ɹ/, which is the R-like sound present in most English accents. However, in Northern American English for example, there is also the R-colored schwa /ɚ/. This is a vowel, or at least some phoneticians consider it one. I'm not a phonetician and I can't honestly say I know why some sounds are considered consonants and other vowels, so I can't make this any clearer.

As for the third formant and formants in general, I don't know what your acoustics knowledge is. I will assume no knowledge here.

When you pluck a string of a guitar, it starts vibrating at many frequencies at the same time. These frequencies are called partials and a sound with more than one partial is called complex. Most sounds you hear are complex. In particular, the speech sounds are always complex with many partials. It turns out that a human brain uses only a few of them to distinguish between speech sounds. These partials are called formants. The third formant of a sound it the third lowest.
 

raindoctor

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It is called a vowel, because the articulators don't touch. This is a crude description, since one can distinguish sounds based on the distance between articulators: stop (full obstruction) > fricative (slit) > approximant ( more open than the slit) > vowel. Your native r could be a tap or a trill, hence a consonant, since the articulators touch. It is not the case in many native English dialects; in some native dialects, r is produced as a tap.

R-colored vowels and r consonant in AmE are different in timing. Otherwise, both are same. Even in American lects, this r produced in two different ways: bunched (molar) r; retroflexed (curled0 r.

For more, check Geoff's post
 
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