Vowel Chart

In RP there are twenty different vowel phonemes. In J.C. Wells' (1982: 120) chart below there are twenty-seven different boxes. Why? The reason is that the twenty-seven lexical sets represent how the different phonemes of English are pronounced and how they evolved. Wells uses one word to represent all the words in each set. For example, the KIT set represents all the words that had short /i/ in earlier forms of English like kid, tip, thin, etc.

In the case of other lexical sets the situation is more complicated. In RP the phoneme /ɑː/ is found in BATH words like bath, path and grass and the same phoneme /ɑː/ is also found in words from the START and PALM but they evolved differently. The BATH words evolved in the South-East when some of the words that were pronounced /a/ split into two groups, the BATH group and the TRAP group. This split did not happen in areas like the North of England (see Yorkshire English, for instance). In the North, BATH words are pronounced like TRAP words as no split took place. The START words have /ɑː/ because the "a" sound was lengthened when post-vocalic "r" disappeared. The "a" sound was lengthened in PALM words when the "l" sound disappeared. So, the chart shows us how lexical sets are pronounced and how they evolved.

KIT	ɪ	FLEECE	iː	NEAR	ɪə
DRESS	e	FACE	eɪ	SQUARE	eə
TRAP	æ	PALM	ɑː	START	ɑː
LOT	ɒ	THOUGHT	ɔː	NORTH	ɔː
STRUT	ʌ	GOAT	əʊ	FORCE	ɔː
FOOT	ʊ	GOOSE	uː	CURE	ʊə
BATH	ɑː	PRICE	aɪ	happY	i
CLOTH	ɒ	CHOICE	ɔɪ	lettER	ə
NURSE	ɜː	MOUTH	aʊ	commA	ə