Vowel Sentences
Contents: short sentences, one for each cardinal vowel, where a vowel occurs in various
phonological and phonetic contexts.
The short sentences were spoken in English by a range of people who were born in a
number of countries. Some of the participants spoke English as a native language, and
some didn’t (see associated spreadsheet for further details on participants).
1.
2.
3.
4.
Take a peep at these three trees, the leaves seem a very deep green.
Pretty little Mrs. Smith lives in this vicinity.
He said twelve yellow jellies were better than ten red ones, but twenty were best.
That man has a bad habit of cramming his hats into a bag already packed with
jackets.
5. Martha calmly parked father’s car in the farmyard.
6. Let’s pop into that shop, I want to polish off a lot of jobs before tomorrow.
7. In hoarse ruckus voice he implored them to pour all the water into the sauce.
8. Look at the cook putting sugar on the pudding.
9. It would improve the soup to add a few spoonful’s of juice from stewed fruit such
as prunes or rhubarb.
10. My brother took running jump but stumbled and fell plump into a muddy puddle.
11. I am perfectly certain that the first birds I heard were blackbirds.
12. (Diphthong – this is sometimes pronounced).
13. The waiter gave the lady eight stale cakes.
14. Don’t go home alone, nobody knows how lonely the road is.
15. My wife tried twice to buy the right kind of pie.
16. The brown hound growled as it prowled round the town.
17. I am annoyed that the oysters were poisonous, it has spoilt my enjoyment.
18. Near beer is a queer idea, he jeered.
19. Sarah has fairer hair than Mary.
20. I’m sure the poor curate is furious.
Text was transcribed from the recordings on the 23 October 2013. Punctuation is
therefore not known.
Recordings were made from 1949 to 1960 and subsequently digitized at a later date, and
saved as .wav files.