tense vowel
English
Etymology
Compound of tense + vowel.
Noun
tense vowel (plural tense vowels)
- (phonetics) A vowel produced with relative constriction of the vocal tract.
- 2001, Michael Dobrovolsky, “Phonetics: The Sounds of Language”, in William O'Grady, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Janie Rees-Miller, editors, Contemporary Linguistics, →ISBN, page 35:
- All of the vowels illustrated [...] are tense vowels; they are produced with a placement of the tongue that results in greater vocal tract constriction than that of nontense vowels...
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Antonyms
- lax vowel