Editing Vowel length (section)

====Contrastive vowel length====
In many varieties of English, vowels contrast with each other both in length and in quality, and descriptions differ in the relative importance given to these two features. Some descriptions of [[Received Pronunciation]] and more widely some descriptions of [[English phonology]] group all non-diphthongal vowels into the categories "long" and "short", convenient terms for grouping the many vowels of English.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wells |first1=John C |title=Accents of English |date=1982 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=119}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Daniel |last2=Roach |first2=Peter |last3=Setter |first3=Jane |last4=Esling |first4=John |title=The Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary |date=2011 |publisher=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-15255-6 |page=vii | edition = 18th}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wells |first1=J.C. |title=Longman Pronunciation Dictionary |date=2008 |publisher=Longman |page=xxiii |edition=3rd}}</ref> [[Daniel Jones (phonetician)|Daniel Jones]] proposed that phonetically similar pairs of long and short vowels could be grouped into single phonemes, distinguished by the presence or absence of phonological length ([[chroneme]]).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Daniel |title=An Outline of English Phonetics |date=1967 |publisher=Heffer |page=63 |edition=9th}}</ref> The usual long-short pairings for RP are /iː + ɪ/, /ɑː + æ/, /ɜ: + ə/, /ɔː + ɒ/, /u + ʊ/, but Jones omits /ɑː + æ/. This approach is not found in present-day descriptions of English. Vowels show allophonic variation in length and also in other features according to the context in which they occur. The terms ''tense'' (corresponding to ''long'') and ''lax'' (corresponding to ''short'') are alternative terms that do not directly refer to length.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Giegerich |first1=H. |title=English phonology: an introduction |date=1992 |publisher=Cambridge |page=para 3.3}}</ref>

In [[Australian English phonology|Australian English]], there is contrastive vowel length in closed syllables between long and short {{IPA|/e/}} and {{IPA|/ɐ/}}. The following are [[minimal pair]]s of length:

{| style="margin-left: 1em;" cellspacing="3"
| {{IPA|/ˈfeɹiː/}} ''ferry'' |||| {{IPA|/ˈfeːɹiː/}} ''fairy''
|-
| {{IPA|/ˈkɐt/}} ''cut'' |||| {{IPA|/ˈkɐːt/}} ''cart''
|}