{"id":263,"date":"2025-06-12T17:17:58","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T17:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=263"},"modified":"2026-06-26T22:52:04","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T02:52:04","slug":"tense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=263","title":{"rendered":"Tense"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[tense]<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n

Counterpart<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

[lax]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

Feature System<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jakobsonian <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Definition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sounds produced with greater muscular tension, especially in the pharyngeal walls, resulting in higher intensity, longer duration, more distinct formant structure, and less acoustic damping compared to [lax] counterparts. A similar deviation may be presumed for the spectrum of tense consonants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purpose<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Allows for lexical distinctions (e.g., English beat<\/em> vs. bit<\/em>) and reinforcing phonological contrasts at both segmental and prosodic levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jakobson and Lotz (1949) discuss the feature [tense] to describe a type of vocalic and consonantal complexity involving muscular effort and duration. The tense vowels [i], [u], and [y] are distinguished from their [non-tense] counterparts, the glides consonants [j], [w], and [\u0265], by their greater vocalic stability and syllabic role. Tense vowels and consonants are distinguished from their lax ones, linking tenseness to greater articulatory strength and airflow. Jakobson emphasized that tenseness must exist in contrast with laxness. Jakobson, Fant & Halle 1952, in Preliminaries<\/em> to speech analysis<\/em> use [tense] to contrast stop pairs. This concept was formalized in Chomsky and Halle\u2019s (1968) The sound pattern of English (SPE)<\/em>, where tense sounds are described as involving greater articulatory precision, muscular tension, and longer duration. Perkell (1965) supports these claims with physiological data, showing that tense vowels maintain more stable vocal tract configurations than [lax] vowels. Later, Halle and Stevens (1969) proposed Advanced Tongue Root [ATR] as a more articulatorily grounded alternative to [tense], replacing both [tense] and the earlier feature proposed by Chompsky [covered]. Clements and Halle (1983) discussed both [tense] and [ATR] and suggested they may be variant implementations of the same underlying contrast, as they are not contrastive in any known language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Lindau (1978, 1979) argued they are phonetically distinct: [tense] relates to tongue height, while [ATR] involves pharyngeal expansion and overall vocal tract shape. To clarify, she relabeled [ATR] as [expanded\/constricted pharynx]. She also cited languages with both [ATR] harmony and tenseness-based vowel reduction, demonstrating that both features may coexist functionally in different phonological domains. Keating (1988) reviewed efforts to unify [tense] and [ATR] but noted ongoing disagreements. While [ATR] has become the preferred label in many phonological systems, due to its clear articulatory target, some researchers, like Anderson (2021), maintain that [tense] helps explain vowel height distinctions in some systems. This is an open-ended research question that is still being discussed today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Anderson, Stephen R. 2021. Phonology in the twentieth century: Second edition, revised and expanded<\/em>. Vol. 5. Berlin: Language Science Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chomsky, Noam & Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English<\/em>. New York: Harper & Row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Halle, Morris, Roman Jakobson & Gunnar Fant. 1952. Preliminaries to speech analysis: The distinctive features and their correlates<\/em>. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keating, Patricia A. 1988. Underspecification in phonetics. Phonology<\/em> 5(2). 275\u2013292. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/S0952675700002395<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindau, Mona. 1978. Vowel features. Language<\/em> 54(3). 541\u2013563. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1353\/lan.1978.0066<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindau, Mona. 1979. The feature expanded. Journal of Phonetics<\/em> 7(2). 163\u2013176. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/S0095-4470(19)31047-2<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further Reading<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Makeeva, Nadezhda & Natalia Kuznetsova. 2022. Phonological and acoustic properties of ATR in the vowel system of Akebu (Kwa). Phonology<\/em> 39(4). 641\u2013678. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/S0952675723000222<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mendousse, Kevin. 2007. Le dilemme de Roman Jakobson face \u00e0 l\u2019opposition de tension\/laxit\u00e9 vocalique. Histoire \u00c9pist\u00e9mologie Langage<\/em> 29(1).29-68. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3406\/hel.2007.2911<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Colley<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[tense] Counterpart [lax] Feature System Jakobsonian Definition Sounds produced with greater muscular tension, especially in the pharyngeal walls, resulting in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"disabled","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":705,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions\/705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}