Unstressed and reduced vowels in English

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This article describes Unstressed and reduced vowels in English language.

An unstressed vowel is the vowel sound that forms the syllable peak of a syllable that has no lexical stress. A reduced vowel is one of the vowels that can only occur in unstressed syllables, like schwa.

[edit] Reduced vowels

Schwa is the most common reduced vowel in English language, and 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 like Received Pronunciation, in rhotic dialects like most of North American English, "er" designates an r-colored schwa, [ɚ], which is pronounced like schwa, except the tongue is pulled back in the mouth and "bunched up".

In some dialects of English there is a distinction between two vowel heights of reduced vowels, schwa and barred i, the close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/. In the British phonetic tradition, /ɪ/ is used to transcribe this vowel in British English instead of /ɨ/, but the sound is the same. An example of a minimal pair contrasting schwa and barred i:

  • The e in roses is a barred i
  • The a in Rosa's is a schwa

The other sounds that can serve as the peak of reduced syllables are the syllabic consonants. The consonants that can be syllabic in English are the nasals /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, and /l/ (actually a dark l. For example:

  • The m in prism is sometimes a syllabic /m/.
  • The on in button is a syllabic /n/ in dialects that pronounce intervocalic 't' as a glottal stop.
  • 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/.

[edit] Unstressed vowels

Most other vowels in American English can occur in unstressed syllables. Exceptions include /e/, /ɔ/, /aʊ/, and /ʌ/

For example:

vowel example IPA
/i/ wily [ˈwaɪ.li]
/ɛ/ enlist [ɛnˈlɪst]
/ɑ/ neon [ˈni.ɑn]
/æ/ valet [væˈleɪ]
/o/ limo [ˈlɪ.moʊ]
/ʊ/ fulfill [fʊlˈfɪl]
/u/ tofu [ˈtoʊ.fu]
/aɪ/ idea [aɪˈdi.ə]
/ɔɪ/ royale [ɹɔɪˈæl]

[edit] See also

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