The tongue raises and lowers to produce an array of front and back vowels.

The height of articulation: Not only does the tongue partition the air masses to produce front and back vowels, but it can be raised or lowered in the oral cavity to further modify them.



• Thus a full array of front vowels can be produced from high to low as follows:
  
  
  • "beat"
  • "bit"
  • "bait"
  • "bet"
  • "bat"

• For the back vowels, the array would be from high to low as follows:
  
  
  • "soon"
  • "stood"
  • "sow'
  • "saw"
  • "sod"
  
  
• Although it is not absolutely necessary, most people drop their jaw when producing low vowels to provide more room for the tongue. This has considerable value in the process of speech (lip) reading.

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