back (adj.)

(sounds) Classification of back speech sounds are of two types: (a) those articulated in the back part of the mouth; and (b) those articulated with the back part of the TONGUE. In many cases, these two criteria coincide: back VOWELS are ‘back’ in both senses, as in English hard, talk, show, got, as are the back CONSONANTS heard at the beginning of go, car and way. Consonants made in the LARYNX or PHARYNX, however, such as [h], are ‘back’ in sense (a) only. Back vowels are contrasted, in traditional PHONETIC classifications, with FRONT and CENTRAL VOWELS. In the traditional classifications, sounds made at the back of the mouth are distinguished from those made at the front; and those made by the back of the tongue are opposed to those made further forward, by the TIP and BLADE (or front) of the tongue. In the DISTINCTIVE FEATURE analysis of sounds proposed by Chomsky and Halle, the equivalent of ‘front’ is ANTERIOR, and of ‘tip/blade’ is CORONAL. Back sounds as a whole, in their terminology, are a type of CAVITY feature (specifically, a TONGUE-BODY FEATURE); they are contrasted with non-back sounds, i.e. sounds produced without any retraction of the tongue from the neutral position.