Editing Vowel (section)

=== Tenseness ===
{{Main|Tenseness|Checked and free vowels}}
[[Tenseness]] is used to describe the opposition of ''tense vowels'' vs. ''lax vowels''. This opposition has traditionally been thought to be a result of greater muscular tension, though phonetic experiments have repeatedly failed to show this.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}}

Unlike the other features of vowel quality, tenseness is only applicable to the few languages that have this opposition (mainly [[Germanic language]]s, e.g. [[German language|German]]), whereas the vowels of the other languages (e.g. [[Spanish language|Spanish]]) cannot be described with respect to tenseness in any meaningful way.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}}

One may distinguish the English tense vs. lax vowels roughly, with its spelling. Tense vowels usually occur in words with the final [[silent e|silent {{vr|e}}]], as in ''mate''. Lax vowels occur in words without the silent {{vr|e}}, such as ''mat''. In [[American English]], lax vowels {{IPA|[ɪ, ʊ, ɛ, ʌ, æ]}} do not appear in stressed open syllables.<ref>[[Peter Ladefoged|Ladefoged, Peter]] & Johnson, Keith. (2011). Tense and Lax Vowels. In ''A Course in Phonetics'' (6th ed., pp. 98–100). Boston, MA: Cengage.</ref>

In traditional grammar, ''long vowels'' vs. ''short vowels'' are more commonly used, compared to ''tense'' and ''lax''. The two sets of terms are used interchangeably by some because the features are concomitant in some varieties of English.{{clarify|date=April 2019}} In most [[Germanic languages]], lax vowels can only occur in [[Syllable#Open and closed|closed syllables]]. Therefore, they are also known as ''checked vowels'', whereas the tense vowels are called ''free vowels'' since they can occur in any kind of syllable.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}}