Theopen-mid back rounded vowel, orlow-mid back rounded vowel,[1] is a type ofvowel sound, used in somespokenlanguages. The symbol in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɔ⟩. The IPA symbol is aturned letterc and both the symbol and the sound are commonly called "open-o". The nameopen-o represents the sound, in that it is like the sound represented by ⟨o⟩, theclose-mid back rounded vowel, except it is more open. It also represents the symbol, which can be remembered as ano which has been "opened" by removing part of the closed circular shape.
In Received Pronunciation and Australian English, the open-mid back rounded vowel occurs as the main allophone of theLOT vowel/ɒ/. The contrast between/ɔː/ and/ɒ/ is thus strongly maintained, with the former vowel being realized as close-mid[oː] and the latter as open-mid[ɔ], similarly to the contrast between/o/ and/ɔ/ found inGerman,Italian andPortuguese.[2][3][6]
Itsvowel backness isback, which means the tongue is positioned back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as aconsonant.
Contrasts close[u], near-close[o̝], close-mid[o] and open-mid[ɔ] back rounded vowels in addition to the open central unrounded[ä].[8][9] Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɒ⟩.
Mainly in speakers without thecot–caught merger. It may be lower[ɒ]. (It is rarely lowered to/ɒ/ beforeliquids/lɹ/, and may thus be more familiar to many North Americans inr-colored form,/ɔ˞/.)
^abWikström (2013:45), "It seems to be the case that younger RP or near-RP speakers typically use a closer quality, possibly approaching Cardinal 6 considering that the quality appears to be roughly intermediate between that used by older speakers for the LOT vowel and that used for the THOUGHT vowel, while older speakers use a more open quality, between Cardinal Vowels 13 and 6."
^Schambach, Gerog (1858), "Wörterbuch der niederdeutschen Mundart der Fürstenthümer Göttingen und Grubenhagen oder GöttingischGrubenhagen'sches Idiotikon", p. 30.
^Darnal, Arnav (2024). "Spoken and sung vowels produced by bilingual Nepali speakers: A brief comparison".Himalayan Linguistics.23 (1):5–11.doi:10.5070/H923161723.
^Pokharel, Madhav Prasad (1989),Experimental analysis of Nepali sound system (PhD), University of Pune, India
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