Frontal lip shape for French and English vowels

This study examines lip shape in French and English vowels. It is based on our own newly gathered data and some data in the published literature for more than 2000 vowel tokens. Only frontal shape of the lip opening is analyzed. Labial configurations for vowels in the two languages are described, and several uncommon characteristics are pointed out, which sometimes do not fit closely with the assumed phonological features. The data suggest that not only shapes, but also strategies may differ greatly from one language to the other; for instance, there are differences in the relationship between lip opening and tongue height.