Vowel reduction
Encyclopedia
In phonetics
, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic quality of vowel
s, which are related to changes in stress
, sonority
, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for Creek language
), and which are perceived as "weakening". It most often makes the vowels shorter as well.
In phonology
, vowel reduction is a reduction of the number of distinct vowels, rather than their quality, either over time or when comparing related dialects. In some cases these two concepts may be related. For example, when vowels are phonetically reduced in English, there is also a reduction in the number of vowel contrasts. In other cases, however, phonemic reduction is due to historical vowel mergers (such as the merger of the vowels in Mary, merry, marry in much of the United States) and has nothing to do with "weakening".
Such a vowel may be called reduced or weak. An unreduced vowel may be contrasted as full or strong.
. A well-researched type of reduction is that of the neutralization of acoustic distinctions in unstressed vowel
s, which occurs in many languages. The most common reduced vowel is schwa
.
Whereas full vowels are distinguished by height, backness, and roundness, according to Bolinger (1989), reduced unstressed vowels are largely unconcerned with height or roundness. English /ə/, for example, may range phonetically from mid [ə] to [ɐ] to open [a]; English /ɨ/ ranges from close [i], [ɪ], [e], to open-mid [ɛ]. The primary distinction is that /ɨ/ is further front than /ə/, contrasted in the numerous English words ending in unstressed -ia. That is, the jaw, which to a large extent controls vowel height, tends to be relaxed when pronouncing reduced vowels. Similarly, English /ɵ/ ranges through [ʊ] and [o]; although it may be labialized to varying degrees, the lips are relaxed in comparison to /uː/, /ou/, or /ɔː/. The primary distinction in words like folio is again one of backness. However, the backness distinction is not as great as that of full vowels; reduced vowels are also centralized, and are sometimes referred to by that term. They may also be called obscure, as there is no one-to-one correspondence between full and reduced vowels. (Bolinger 1989:347)
Sound duration is a common factor in reduction: In fast speech, vowels are reduced due to physical limitations of the articulatory organs, e.g., the tongue cannot move to a prototypical position fast or completely enough to produce a full-quality vowel. Compare: clipping (phonetics)
.
Different languages have different types of vowel reduction, and this is one of the difficulties in language acquisition
; see, e.g., "Non-native pronunciations of English
" and "Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages
". Vowel reduction of second language
speakers is a separate study.
Stress-related vowel reduction is a principal factor in the development of Indo-European ablaut
, as well as other changes reconstructed by historical linguistics
.
Such vowel reduction is one of the sources of distinction between a spoken language
and its written counterpart
. Vernacular and formal speech often have different levels of vowel reduction, and so the term "vowel reduction" is also applied to differences in a language variety
with respect to, e.g., the language standard.
Some languages, such as Finnish
, Hindi
, and classical Spanish
, are claimed to lack vowel reduction. Such languages are often called syllable-timed languages. At the other end of the spectrum, Mexican Spanish
is characterized by the reduction or loss of the unstressed vowels, mainly when they are in contact with the sound /s/. It can be the case that the words pesos, pesas, and peces are pronounced the same: [ˈpesə̥s]. In the same way, Slovene
has a stressed reduced vowel: /e/ appears as schwa [ə] in some reducing environments (such as /er/ when no other vowel is adjacent), even when the syllable is stressed.
, however, vowel reduction generally refers to changes in the number of vowel
s during the evolution of a language
, or across genetically related languages, rather than weakening of individual vowels.
An example is provided by Japonic languages
. Proto-Japanese
had 8 vowels; this has been reduced to 5 in modern Japanese language
, but in Yaeyama language
the vowel reduction has progressed further, to 3 vowels.
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic quality of vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s, which are related to changes in stress
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
, sonority
Sonority
Sonority may refer to:*sound*sonority hierarchy, a ranking of speech sounds by amplitude*In music theory, a chord, particularly when speaking of non-traditional harmonies...
, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for Creek language
Creek language
The Creek language, also known as Muskogee or Muscogee , is a Muskogean language spoken by Muscogee and Seminole people primarily in the U.S. states of Oklahoma and Florida....
), and which are perceived as "weakening". It most often makes the vowels shorter as well.
In phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, vowel reduction is a reduction of the number of distinct vowels, rather than their quality, either over time or when comparing related dialects. In some cases these two concepts may be related. For example, when vowels are phonetically reduced in English, there is also a reduction in the number of vowel contrasts. In other cases, however, phonemic reduction is due to historical vowel mergers (such as the merger of the vowels in Mary, merry, marry in much of the United States) and has nothing to do with "weakening".
Such a vowel may be called reduced or weak. An unreduced vowel may be contrasted as full or strong.
Weakening of vowels
Phonetic reduction most often involves a centralization of the vowel, that is, a reduction in the amount of movement of the tongue in pronouncing the vowel, as with the characteristic change of many unstressed vowels at the ends of English words to something approaching schwaSchwa
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...
. A well-researched type of reduction is that of the neutralization of acoustic distinctions in 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 :...
s, which occurs in many languages. The most common reduced vowel is 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...
.
Whereas full vowels are distinguished by height, backness, and roundness, according to Bolinger (1989), reduced unstressed vowels are largely unconcerned with height or roundness. English /ə/, for example, may range phonetically from mid [ə] to [ɐ] to open [a]; English /ɨ/ ranges from close [i], [ɪ], [e], to open-mid [ɛ]. The primary distinction is that /ɨ/ is further front than /ə/, contrasted in the numerous English words ending in unstressed -ia. That is, the jaw, which to a large extent controls vowel height, tends to be relaxed when pronouncing reduced vowels. Similarly, English /ɵ/ ranges through [ʊ] and [o]; although it may be labialized to varying degrees, the lips are relaxed in comparison to /uː/, /ou/, or /ɔː/. The primary distinction in words like folio is again one of backness. However, the backness distinction is not as great as that of full vowels; reduced vowels are also centralized, and are sometimes referred to by that term. They may also be called obscure, as there is no one-to-one correspondence between full and reduced vowels. (Bolinger 1989:347)
Sound duration is a common factor in reduction: In fast speech, vowels are reduced due to physical limitations of the articulatory organs, e.g., the tongue cannot move to a prototypical position fast or completely enough to produce a full-quality vowel. Compare: clipping (phonetics)
Clipping (phonetics)
In phonetics, clipping is the process of shortening the articulation of a phonetic segment, usually a vowel. A clipped vowel is pronounced more quickly than an unclipped vowel, and these clipped vowels are often also reduced...
.
Different languages have different types of vowel reduction, and this is one of the difficulties in language acquisition
Language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with...
; see, e.g., "Non-native pronunciations of English
Non-native pronunciations of English
Non-native pronunciations of English result from the common linguistic phenomenon in which non-native users of any language tend to carry the intonation, phonological processes and pronunciation rules from their mother tongue into their English speech...
" and "Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages
Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages
The following is a list of common non-native pronunciations English-speakers make when trying to speak foreign languages. Much of it is due to transfer of phonological rules from English to the new language as well as differences in grammar and syntax that they encounter.This article uses...
". Vowel reduction of second language
Second language
A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas ....
speakers is a separate study.
Stress-related vowel reduction is a principal factor in the development of Indo-European ablaut
Indo-European ablaut
In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages...
, as well as other changes reconstructed by historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
.
Such vowel reduction is one of the sources of distinction between a spoken language
Spoken language
Spoken language is a form of human communication in which words derived from a large vocabulary together with a diverse variety of names are uttered through or with the mouth. All words are made up from a limited set of vowels and consonants. The spoken words they make are stringed into...
and its written counterpart
Written language
A written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will instinctively learn or create spoken or gestural languages....
. Vernacular and formal speech often have different levels of vowel reduction, and so the term "vowel reduction" is also applied to differences in a language variety
Variety (linguistics)
In sociolinguistics a variety, also called a lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, accents, registers, styles or other sociolinguistic variation, as well as the standard variety itself...
with respect to, e.g., the language standard.
Some languages, such as Finnish
Spoken Finnish
Colloquial Finnish is the "dialectless" colloquial standard of the Finnish language. It is spoken in the Greater Helsinki region, and in urbanized areas in the Tavastian and Central Finland dialectal areas, such as the cities of Jyväskylä, Lahti, Hyvinkää, and Hämeenlinna...
, Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, and classical Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, are claimed to lack vowel reduction. Such languages are often called syllable-timed languages. At the other end of the spectrum, Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....
is characterized by the reduction or loss of the unstressed vowels, mainly when they are in contact with the sound /s/. It can be the case that the words pesos, pesas, and peces are pronounced the same: [ˈpesə̥s]. In the same way, Slovene
has a stressed reduced vowel: /e/ appears as schwa [ə] in some reducing environments (such as /er/ when no other vowel is adjacent), even when the syllable is stressed.
Reduction in number of vowels
In phonologyPhonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, however, vowel reduction generally refers to changes in the number of vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s during the evolution of a language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, or across genetically related languages, rather than weakening of individual vowels.
An example is provided by Japonic languages
Japonic languages
Japonic languages is a term which identifies and characterises the Japanese which is spoken on the main islands of Japan and the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. This widely accepted linguistics term was coined by Leon Serafim....
. Proto-Japanese
Japonic languages
Japonic languages is a term which identifies and characterises the Japanese which is spoken on the main islands of Japan and the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. This widely accepted linguistics term was coined by Leon Serafim....
had 8 vowels; this has been reduced to 5 in modern Japanese language
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, but in Yaeyama language
Yaeyama language
Yaeyama is a Ryukyuan language that is spoken in the Yaeyama Islands, the southernmost inhabited island group in Japan, with a combined population of about 50,000 . The Yaeyama Islands are situated to the southwest of the Miyako area of the Ryukyus and to the east of Taiwan. Yaeyama is most...
the vowel reduction has progressed further, to 3 vowels.
See also
- Clipping (phonetics)Clipping (phonetics)In phonetics, clipping is the process of shortening the articulation of a phonetic segment, usually a vowel. A clipped vowel is pronounced more quickly than an unclipped vowel, and these clipped vowels are often also reduced...
- ElisionElisionElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
- Relaxed pronunciationRelaxed pronunciationRelaxed pronunciation is a phenomenon that happens when the syllables of common words are slurred together...
- Silent letterSilent letterIn an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation...
- SchwaSchwaIn 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...
- Unstressed vowelUnstressed vowelIn 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 :...