Tenseness ^HOT^
In phonology, tenseness or tensing is, most broadly, the pronunciation of a sound with greater muscular effort or constriction than is typical.[1] More specifically, tenseness is the pronunciation of a vowel with less centralization (i.e. either more fronting or more backing), longer duration, and narrower mouth width (with the tongue being perhaps more raised) compared with another vowel.[2] The opposite quality to tenseness is known as laxness or laxing: the pronunciation of a vowel with relatively more centralization, shorter duration, and more widening (perhaps even lowering).
tenseness
Contrasts between two vowels on the basis of tenseness, and even phonemic contrasts, are common in many languages, including English. For example, in most English dialects, beet and bit are contrasted by the vowel sound being tense in the first word but not the second; i.e., /iː/ (as in beet) is the tense counterpart to the lax /ɪ/ (as in bit); the same is true of /uː/ (as in kook) versus /ʊ/ (as in cook). Unlike most distinctive features, the feature [tense] can be interpreted only relatively, often with a perception of greater tension or pressure in the mouth, which, in a language like English, contrasts between two corresponding vowel types: a tense vowel and a lax vowel. An example in Vietnamese is the letters ă and â representing lax vowels, and the letters a and ơ representing the corresponding tense vowels. Some languages like Spanish are often considered as having only tense vowels, but since the quality of tenseness is not a phonemic feature in this language, it cannot be applied to describe its vowels in any meaningful way. The term has also occasionally been used to describe contrasts in consonants.
Occasionally, tenseness has been used to distinguish pairs of contrasting consonants in languages. Korean, for example, has a three-way contrast among stops and affricates; the three series are often transcribed as [p t tɕ k] - [pʰ tʰ tɕʰ kʰ] - [p͈ t͈ t͈ɕ k͈]. The contrast between the [p] series and the [p͈] series is sometimes said to be a function of tenseness: the former are lax and the latter tense. In this case the definition of "tense" would have to include greater glottal tension; see Korean phonology.
In some dialects of Irish and Scottish Gaelic, there is a contrast between [l, lʲ, n, nʲ] and [ɫˑ, ʎˑ, nˠˑ, ɲˑ]. Again, the former set have sometimes been described as lax and the latter set as tense. It is not clear what phonetic characteristics other than greater duration would then be associated with tenseness.
Some researchers have argued that the contrast in German, traditionally described as voice ([p t k] vs. [b d ɡ]), is in fact better analyzed as tenseness since the latter set is voiceless in Southern German. German linguists call the distinction fortis and lenis rather than tense and lax. Tenseness is especially used to explain stop consonants of the Alemannic German dialects because they have two series of them that are identically voiceless and unaspirated. However, it is debated whether the distinction is really a result of different muscular tension and not of gemination.
Ultrasonic imaging was used to measure the distance from the external neck wall to the anterior pharyngeal wall (APW). Measurements were made in the centre of the vocalic segment of 50 CVC syllables. 5 'tense' and 5 'lax' vowels of Standard American English were used. The APW was shown to position itself according to a combination of tongue height, frontness and 'tenseness' of the vowel, and coarticulation effects of neighbouring consonants. Tense vowels showed APW advancement compared to lax vowels having similar tongue height and frontness. Coarticulation effects depend on voicing and place of articulation. The ultrasonic equipment used is described briefly. Implications for distinctive feature theory are mentioned.
Vowels are made without an obstruction in the vocal tract, so they are quite sonorous. The body of the tongue moves in the mouth to shape each vowel, and for some vowels, the lips are rounded as well. Linguists classify vowels according to four pieces of information: tongue height, tongue backness, lip rounding, and tenseness.
Anxiety is not a diseasebut it is just as catching and as hard to cure. When a tense, anxious man tries to hide his feelings, other people "sense" what he is up against and start worrying too. In fact, it may be the tenseness of trying to hide tenseness that infects others, say Drs. Jurgen Ruesch and A. Rodney Prestwood of the University of California Medical School, in the current Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry.
If tenseness in a wire causes its warming, the weakest place of the rope will react - it will became the warmest. If it is possible to predict the place/point of destruction of a rope or a chain by a means of tenseness causing warming, than it is also possible to search for disruptions on static ropes, but at suitable conditions. Destructive and non-destructive measurements were combined in order to detect disruptions on ropes and chains. Our experiments proved that at certain conditions the use of thermovision for detection of weak places on loaded ropes and chains is applicable. Above mentioned methodology was applied on static ropes in the place where it is not possible to perform regular NDT and at the places where ropes enter socket baskets.
Now referred to as The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo's watershed work was first published in 1632 A.D. with a very long title that indicates the tenseness surrounding its publication. The long title makes sure to announce Galileo's dedicatee, the powerful Duke of Tuscany (Fernando II de Medici, whose name appears bigger than Galileo's on the title page), and suggests that the author will take an even-handed and dispassionate approach to the subject. The frontispiece shows Galileo in conference with Ptolemy and Copernicus. Only Copernicus and Galileo hold scientific instruments.
Acoustic reflectometry (AR) can be applied to detect middle ear effusion (MEE) in order to diagnose otitis media with effusion (OME). Natural variation in the anatomy of the ear canal and tympanic membrane affects the result of AR. In the present study the effect of the length of the ear canal and the tension of the tympanic membrane on the results of AR was modelled. Six plastic models of the ear canal and tympanic membrane were constructed, with unique canal lengths and unique tympanic membrane tensions. The plastic models were measured with AR and the resulting data were analyzed with an artificial neural network (ANN) method. The results indicate that, with help of the ANN, the length of the ear canal and the tension of the tympanic membrane can be identified from AR data; in the validation phase the ANN classified the different ear canal lengths correctly in all six cases, and in five of the six cases it correctly classified the tympanic membrane tenseness. These test results may be useful when developing the AR method for more accurate diagnostics of OME. 041b061a72