Unstressed vowel
Encyclopedia
lang=en
In English
, vowel reduction is the centralization and weakening of an unstressed vowel
, such as the characteristic change of many vowels at the ends of words to schwa
. Stressed vowels are never reduced in English.
, though recently this has been abandoned in dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary
(OED). English has up to five reduced vowels, though this varies with dialect and speaker. Schwa
is the most common, and orthographically it may be denoted by any of the vowel letters:
The following are also schwas, except in dialects that have two distinct reduced vowels (see below).
Whereas the sound represented by the er in water is a schwa in non-rhotic accents
like Received Pronunciation
, in rhotic dialects like most of North American English, "er" designates an r-colored
schwa, [ɚ].
[ɪ̈] (or equivalently [ɨ̞]). In the British phonetic tradition, this is written /ɪ/, and in the American tradition /ɨ/. (The OED has recently converted to (ɪ).) An example of a minimal pair
contrasting these two reduced vowels:
(See Phonological history of English high front vowels
.)
ʊ) in OED transcription), as in into /ˈintʊ/, and /oʊ/ reducing to /ɵ/, as in widow /ˈwɪdɵ/. cites a three-way contrast, a mission /əˈmɪʃən/, emission /ɨˈmɪʃən/, and omission /ɵˈmɪʃən/.
A word with all three schwas is (in OED transcription) /ˈbjuːtᵻfᵿlnəs/ beautifulness.
s. The consonants that can be syllabic in English are the nasals
/m/, /n/, /ŋ/, and /l/ (actually a velarized l
). For example:
These reduced vowels contrast in the word parallelepipedal [ˌpærəlɛlᵻˈpɪpɛdl̩], and in some dialects idler [ˈaɪdl̩ɚ].
The vowels and diphthongs /ɔː/, /aʊ/, and /ɔɪ/ are never reduced, and all full (unreduced) vowels may occur in unstressed position, especially in compound words. (These are often transcribed in dictionaries as having secondary stress, but that is a convention for full vowels that occur after the primary stress. See secondary stress
.) In English compounds, the second word typically looses its stress without weakening, though in highly frequent compounds it may weaken.
|+ Unstressed full vowels
! Vowel !! Example !! Pronunciation !! Compound example
|-
| /iː/ || manatee || [ˈmænətiː] || bedsheet
|-
| /ɪ/ || chauvinism || [ˈʃoʊvɨnɪzm] || moonlit
|-
| /eɪ/ || Monday || [ˈmʌndeɪ]
|-
| /ɛ/ || enlist || [ɛnˈlɪst] || tentpeg
|-
| /æ/ || tattoo || [tæˈtuː] || snowman
|-
| /ʌ/ || unknown || [ʌnˈnoʊn] || kettledrum
|-
| /ɑː/ || grandma || [ˈɡræmɑː]
|-
| /ɒ/ || neon || [ˈniːɒn]
|-
| /ɔː/ || outlaw || [ˈaʊtlɔː]
|-
| /oʊ/ || limo || [ˈlɪmoʊ]
|-
| /ʊ/ || fulfill || [fʊlˈfɪl]
|-
| /uː/ || tofu || [ˈtoʊfuː]
|-
| /aʊ/ || discount || [ˈdɪskaʊnt]
|-
| /aɪ/ || idea || [aɪˈdiːə]
|-
| /ɔɪ/ || royale || [ɹɔɪˈæl]
|}
Nonetheless, some vowels, such as /ɪ/ and /ʌ/, reduce quite readily, so that there are few English words that have them in unstressed positions.
One of the effects of vowel reduction is the partial loss of voicing distinctions in preceding consonants. With a full vowel, as in manatee, an unvoiced consonant is typically aspirated: [ˈmænətʰiː]. However, with a reduced vowel, as in humanity, aspiration is lost and the consonant may even become partially voiced. In American English, for the case of /t/, it may also be flapped: [hjʊˈmænɪ̈ɾi]. According to , in the absence of morpheme
boundaries or phonotactical
constraints, a consonant between a full and a reduced vowel generally belongs to the syllable with the full vowel, whereas a consonant between two reduced vowels belongs to a first syllable. According to this analysis, manatee is /ˈmæn.ə.tiː/ and humanity is /hjʊ.ˈmæn.ɪt.i/; voiceless plosives are only aspirated at the beginning of syllables, and /t/ can only be flapped at the end of a syllable: compare might I /maɪt.aɪ/ → [mʌɪɾaɪ] and my tie /maɪ.taɪ/ → [maɪtʰaɪ].
Many English grammatical (function) words alternate between having full but unstressed vowels and reduced vowels, depending on context. For example, the is typically /ðiː/ before a vowel-initial word (the apple) but /ðə/ before a consonant-initial word (the pear), though this distinction is being lost in the United States. Similarly with to: to America /tuː/ vs. to Britain /tə/. Most words, however, alternate depending on how much emphasis they are accorded. When stress shifts to the word, the vowel must be full. Some of these are:
and so on with a, at, would, that, has, etc.
There are also a number of English verb-adjective pairs that are distinguished solely by vowel reduction. For example, in some dialects, separate as a verb (as in 'what separates nation from nation') has a full final vowel, [ˈsɛpəreɪt], whereas the corresponding adjective (as in 'they sleep in separate rooms') has a reduced vowel: [ˈsɛpərət] or [ˈsɛprət].
In English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, vowel reduction is the centralization and weakening of an unstressed vowel
Unstressed vowel
In English, vowel reduction is the centralization and weakening of an unstressed vowel, such as the characteristic change of many vowels at the ends of words to schwa. Stressed vowels are never reduced in English.-Reduced vowels :...
, such as the characteristic change of many vowels at the ends of words to schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
. Stressed vowels are never reduced in English.
Reduced vowels (schwas)
Vowel reduction is phonemic in English. That is, there are two "tiers" of vowels in English, full and reduced; traditionally many English dictionaries have attempted to mark the distinction by transcribing unstressed full vowels as having "secondary" stressSecondary stress
Secondary stress is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the pronunciation of a word; the stronger degree of stress is called 'primary'. The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for secondary stress is a short vertical line preceding and at the foot of the stressed syllable: the nun in ...
, though recently this has been abandoned in dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
(OED). English has up to five reduced vowels, though this varies with dialect and speaker. Schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
is the most common, and orthographically it may be denoted by any of the vowel letters:
- The a in about.
- The e in synthesis.
- The o in harmony.
- The u in medium.
The following are also schwas, except in dialects that have two distinct reduced vowels (see below).
- The i in decimal.
- The y in syringe.
Whereas the sound represented by the er in water is a schwa in non-rhotic accents
Rhotic and non-rhotic accents
English pronunciation can be divided into two main accent groups: a rhotic speaker pronounces a rhotic consonant in words like hard; a non-rhotic speaker does not...
like Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
, in rhotic dialects like most of North American English, "er" designates an r-colored
R-colored vowel
In phonetics, an R-colored or rhotic vowel is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant...
schwa, [ɚ].
Reduced front vowel (i-coloured schwa)
In some dialects of English there is a distinction between two vowel heights of reduced vowels, schwa and the near-close central unrounded vowelNear-close central unrounded vowel
The near-close central unrounded vowel, or near-high central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Alphabet can represent this sound as or...
[ɪ̈] (or equivalently [ɨ̞]). In the British phonetic tradition, this is written /ɪ/, and in the American tradition /ɨ/. (The OED has recently converted to (
Minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have distinct meanings...
contrasting these two reduced vowels:
- The e in roses is [ˈɹoʊzɪ̈z]
- The a in Rosa’s is a schwa [ˈɹoʊzəz]
(See Phonological history of English high front vowels
Phonological history of English high front vowels
The high front vowels of English have undergone a variety of changes over time, which may vary from dialect to dialect.-Weak-vowel merger:The weak-vowel merger is a phonemic merger of with unstressed in certain dialects of English...
.)
Rounded reduced vowel (u-coloured schwa)
Many dialects also retain rounding in reduced vowels, with /uː/ and /ʊ/ reducing to [ʊ̈] (or equivalently [ʉ̞]; (A word with all three schwas is (in OED transcription) /ˈbjuːtᵻfᵿlnəs/ beautifulness.
Syllabic non-schwas
The other sounds that can serve as the peak of reduced syllables are the syllabic consonantSyllabic consonant
A syllabic consonant is a consonant which either forms a syllable on its own, or is the nucleus of a syllable. The diacritic for this in the International Phonetic Alphabet is the under-stroke, ⟨⟩...
s. The consonants that can be syllabic in English are the nasals
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
/m/, /n/, /ŋ/, and /l/ (actually a velarized l
Velarized alveolar lateral approximant
-See also:* Lateral consonant* Velarization* l-vocalization* Ł...
). For example:
- The m in prism is sometimes a syllabic /m/.
- The on in prison is a syllabic /n/.
- The word and in the phrase lock and key in more rapid speech is sometimes pronounced as a syllabic /ŋ/.
- The le in cycle and bottle is a syllablic /l/.
These reduced vowels contrast in the word parallelepipedal [ˌpærəlɛlᵻˈpɪpɛdl̩], and in some dialects idler [ˈaɪdl̩ɚ].
The vowels and diphthongs /ɔː/, /aʊ/, and /ɔɪ/ are never reduced, and all full (unreduced) vowels may occur in unstressed position, especially in compound words. (These are often transcribed in dictionaries as having secondary stress, but that is a convention for full vowels that occur after the primary stress. See secondary stress
Secondary stress
Secondary stress is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the pronunciation of a word; the stronger degree of stress is called 'primary'. The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for secondary stress is a short vertical line preceding and at the foot of the stressed syllable: the nun in ...
.) In English compounds, the second word typically looses its stress without weakening, though in highly frequent compounds it may weaken.
-
- {| class=wikitable
|+ Unstressed full vowels
! Vowel !! Example !! Pronunciation !! Compound example
|-
| /iː/ || manatee || [ˈmænətiː] || bedsheet
|-
| /ɪ/ || chauvinism || [ˈʃoʊvɨnɪzm] || moonlit
|-
| /eɪ/ || Monday || [ˈmʌndeɪ]
|-
| /ɛ/ || enlist || [ɛnˈlɪst] || tentpeg
|-
| /æ/ || tattoo || [tæˈtuː] || snowman
|-
| /ʌ/ || unknown || [ʌnˈnoʊn] || kettledrum
|-
| /ɑː/ || grandma || [ˈɡræmɑː]
|-
| /ɒ/ || neon || [ˈniːɒn]
|-
| /ɔː/ || outlaw || [ˈaʊtlɔː]
|-
| /oʊ/ || limo || [ˈlɪmoʊ]
|-
| /ʊ/ || fulfill || [fʊlˈfɪl]
|-
| /uː/ || tofu || [ˈtoʊfuː]
|-
| /aʊ/ || discount || [ˈdɪskaʊnt]
|-
| /aɪ/ || idea || [aɪˈdiːə]
|-
| /ɔɪ/ || royale || [ɹɔɪˈæl]
|}
Nonetheless, some vowels, such as /ɪ/ and /ʌ/, reduce quite readily, so that there are few English words that have them in unstressed positions.
One of the effects of vowel reduction is the partial loss of voicing distinctions in preceding consonants. With a full vowel, as in manatee, an unvoiced consonant is typically aspirated: [ˈmænətʰiː]. However, with a reduced vowel, as in humanity, aspiration is lost and the consonant may even become partially voiced. In American English, for the case of /t/, it may also be flapped: [hjʊˈmænɪ̈ɾi]. According to , in the absence of morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
boundaries or phonotactical
Phonotactics
Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes...
constraints, a consonant between a full and a reduced vowel generally belongs to the syllable with the full vowel, whereas a consonant between two reduced vowels belongs to a first syllable. According to this analysis, manatee is /ˈmæn.ə.tiː/ and humanity is /hjʊ.ˈmæn.
Alternation
Vowel reduction occurs with varying degrees of stability. In some words, an unstressed vowel is never reduced, and in some it is always reduced, but in a large number the extent of reduction depends on how quickly or carefully the speaker enunciates the word. For example, the o in obscene may be pronounced either as full [ɒ] or as reduced [ə], but the historical o sound in gallon is never a full vowel, no matter how carefully one enunciates.Many English grammatical (function) words alternate between having full but unstressed vowels and reduced vowels, depending on context. For example, the is typically /ðiː/ before a vowel-initial word (the apple) but /ðə/ before a consonant-initial word (the pear), though this distinction is being lost in the United States. Similarly with to: to America /tuː/ vs. to Britain /tə/. Most words, however, alternate depending on how much emphasis they are accorded. When stress shifts to the word, the vowel must be full. Some of these are:
- can: I can go [ˈaɪ kŋ ɡoʊ], but you can? [juː ˈkæn]
- and: [ænd], but also you and me [ˌjuː ən ˈmiː],
- he: He will go [ˈhiː wɨl ɡoʊ], but also will he go? [ˈwɪl ɪ ɡoʊ],
and so on with a, at, would, that, has, etc.
There are also a number of English verb-adjective pairs that are distinguished solely by vowel reduction. For example, in some dialects, separate as a verb (as in 'what separates nation from nation') has a full final vowel, [ˈsɛpəreɪt], whereas the corresponding adjective (as in 'they sleep in separate rooms') has a reduced vowel: [ˈsɛpərət] or [ˈsɛprət].