This document provides information about the open back unrounded vowel /ɑ/ and open-mid back unrounded vowel /ʌ/. It defines the vowels in terms of tongue position, includes examples of words containing each vowel, and provides exercises for pronunciation practice. References are also included that provide additional information on phonetic transcription.

1. Open-mid back rounded vowel /ʌ/
and open back unrounded vowel /ɑ/
Murillo González Leonardo Elías
Trujillo Pérez Naomi

2. Open back unrounded vowel /ɑ/
Back vowel that has the back of the tongue raised
towards the soft palate or velum. It is a low vowel
where the tongue is not raised at all, but
rather lowered from its resting position, where
you feel your mouth opening and your jaw dropping.
A long vowel, consideren between The Primary Cardinal Vowels
(McMahon, 2002).

3. This vowel is the number 305 in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
It is also known as SCRIPT A (because of the lack of the hook).
In this back vowel, the tongue body is in the post-palatal or
velar region. This vowel appears in strong syllables,
which is pronounced with its strong or full form, in a
stressed way. This vowel is one of the five long vowels.
This vowel is also known as LOW BACK VOWEL.
(Birjandi, Salmani-Nodoushan, 2005)

4. This vowel when you pronounce it (such as in ¨palm¨), the tongue is fairly flat
in the mouth where we cannot see or feel the back of the tongue, but we
can easily feel it at the front. With this vowel, the tongue is far away from
the roof of the mouth. When pronouncing it, it has a large oral cavity,
but a small pharynx cavity. It is considered a free steady-state vowel,
where in long, open syllables, and also when preceding nasals,
lateral approximants, and lenis stops and fricatives. (Collins, Mees, 2013).

5. /ɑ/ examples
bar
car
spa
armor
last
apart
sarcasm
card
half
pass
market
example
large
afternoon
plastic
drama
bathroom
photograph
classroom
basket
laugh

6. /ɑ/ E X E R C I S E
1. I took my grandma and sister to the spa by car.
1. A police officer got in an argument with my mother.
1. Back in Autumn, the artist painted an amazing piece of art.

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F47WdIjn5U

8. Open-mid back unrounded vowel /ʌ/ turned v
This is the Cardinal Vowel No. 14 in the IPA usage. It´s american usage is “usually
the same as IPA, but some variation is encountered” (Pullum and Ladusaw, 1996,
p. 18).
Common spellings:
Sum; butter; love; money; cousin; enough.
Unusual spellings:
Blood; flood; does.

9. Open-mid back unrounded vowel /ʌ/ turned v
This vowel is very similar to /ə/ but the main
difference is that /ə/ only occurs in unstressed
syllables (e.g. as ‘annoy’, ‘banana’) and /ʌ/ only
occurs in stressed syllables as in “shut” or
“rough” (Kang, Thomson and Murphy, 2018).

10. Examples
Mother [ˈmʌðəɹ]
Common [ˈkʰʌmən]
Begun [bɪˈɡʌn]
Bubblegum [ˈbʌbl̩ɡʌm]

11. Exercises
● My husband loves currant.
● Just my luck!
● Just dump the rubbish in the dustbin.

12. References
● McMahon, A. (2002). An Introduction to English Phonology. Edinburgh University
Press. Edinburgh, Scotland.
● Birjandi, P., Salmani-Nodoushan, M.A. (2005). An Introduction to Phonetics.
Zabankadeh Publications. Tehran, Iran.
● Collins, B., Mees, I. M. (2013). Practical Phonetics and Phonology, Third Edition.
Routledge Taylor and Francis Group. New York, NY.
● Davenport, M. and Hannahs, S. (2010). Introducing phonetics and phonology. 2nd
ed. London: Hodder Education.
● Kang, O., Thomson, R. and Murphy, J. (2018). The Routledge handbook of
contemporary English pronunciation. 1st ed. Abingdon; New York: Routledge.
● Pullum, G. and Ladusaw, W. (1996). Phonetic symbol guide. 2nd ed. London: The
University of Chicago Press.
● Carley, P., Mees, I. and Collins, B. (2018). English phonetics and pronunciation
practice. 1st ed. New York: Routledge.