vokalrom

Vokalrum is a term used in articulatory phonetics to describe the vowel space or the set of possible vowel articulations produced by the human vocal tract. The word, from Scandinavian languages, literally means "vowel room" and is used to refer to the region of articulatory and acoustic space associated with vowels.

Definition and scope: Vokalrum is not a fixed anatomical structure but a conceptual space defined by factors such as tongue height (high–low), tongue backness (front–back), lip rounding, and jaw opening. In acoustic terms the vowel space is commonly represented by formant frequencies, especially F1 and F2, which correlate with vowel height and backness.

Measurement and representation: Researchers map vowels in a formant space, plotting F1 against F2 to visualize the vokalrum. Some analyses include F3 or spectral measurements for finer distinctions. The size and shape of a language's vokalrum depend on its vowel inventory and phonetic contrasts, as well as dialectal variation and coarticulation effects.

Applications: Understanding vokalrum aids cross-linguistic comparison of vowel systems, tracking processes such as vowel heightening, fronting, rounding, or mergers. It also supports language teaching, speech synthesis, and acoustic phonetics research.

See also: Vowel space, Formants, Articulatory phonetics, Speech perception.