Talk:Vowel reduction in English
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The article stated that it is debateable whether a syllable is reduced or whether it has secondary stress. That's not really true. Stress is pretty definitive and it's either there or not. As such I've removed a few vowels from the table since, upon a cursory dictionary search, they were shown to have secondary stress on the vowel in question. There should also be a table that indicates unstressed vowels in RP since the table is obviously for American english only. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 10:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
- It's not really so clear. English has been described as having 4 stress levels, but dictionaries only distinguish 3, collapsing secondary and tertiary. Secondary is truly stressed, while tertiary is unstressed but unreduced. (Primary is stressed with the addition of phrasal stress, while quaternary is reduced.) kwami 16:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
- I like the extra distinction you've added but I still maintain that stress assignment is clear. What the article at one time considered secondary stress you are calling tertiary stress. In what words is stress assignment unclear? Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 18:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
- It's often confused. If you embed a word in a phrase so it's non-final, you eliminate primary (tonic) stress, and are left with lexical stress, no stress, and reduced, which makes things pretty clear. But most dictionaries consider the word in isolation (citation form), assume the tonic stress is lexical, and then conflate secondary (stressed) with tertiary (unstressed). This means that a full vowel is considered to have secondary stress if it follows the tonic stress, but usually not if it precedes it. It's not too hard to decipher the system, but it is misleading. kwami 20:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
- Do you think you could add some citations for all this? Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
- Ladefoged (1975) A course in phonetics, and almost certainly in some of his more scholarly publications (but not SOWL, which does not deal with suprasegmentals). There is a brief summary of this at Degrees of stress. —kwami 06:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
- Do you think you could add some citations for all this? Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry, I meant in the article. This thing doesn't seem to have any sources cited. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 07:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
- It's often confused. If you embed a word in a phrase so it's non-final, you eliminate primary (tonic) stress, and are left with lexical stress, no stress, and reduced, which makes things pretty clear. But most dictionaries consider the word in isolation (citation form), assume the tonic stress is lexical, and then conflate secondary (stressed) with tertiary (unstressed). This means that a full vowel is considered to have secondary stress if it follows the tonic stress, but usually not if it precedes it. It's not too hard to decipher the system, but it is misleading. kwami 20:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
- I like the extra distinction you've added but I still maintain that stress assignment is clear. What the article at one time considered secondary stress you are calling tertiary stress. In what words is stress assignment unclear? Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 18:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] unstressed /eɪ/ and "Parl(ey/ay)"
Hi kwami and Aeusoes1, I think this back-and-forth on the unstressed non-reduced vowels stems from confusing "parley" and "parlay". As I wrote on Aeusoes1's talk page, "parley" and "parlay" are different words. The one with "ey" is only /pɑrli/; the one with "ay" is primarily /pɑrleɪ/ and secondarily /pɑrli/. If there's still controversy over this, we can just use "Monday" as kwami suggested. As regards "turnout", I think that what kwami said on Aeusoes1's talk page applies, which I'm pasting in here:
:Actually, the alleged secondary stress in turnout only means that the vowel isn't reduced; it isn't actually stress. (If it were, it would be primary, as the last stressed syllable in a word said in isolation takes primary stress.) I also have a diphthong /ei/ in parley, but we could use Monday as an example. kwami (talk) 02:54, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Moreover, if I remember correctly from the OED entries (don't have access to it from where I am now), for UK English no secondary stress is indicated, while for US English, it is. Best, Atemperman (talk) 18:47, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
- That might depend on which edition of the OED. I used discount (noun) instead of turnout, since it's not a compound, and there are lots of other /ei/ words out there. kwami (talk) 22:25, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Actually, are there any vowels that cannot be unstressed as well as unreduced?
The only ones left right now are /ɔ(:)/ and /ʌ/. But, outlaw (n.)[1] and unknown[2]. Can anyone cite a source that claims that there exist one or more vowels in English that cannot be unstressed and unreduced? It seems we've found counterexamples for such a claim.--Atemperman (talk) 00:47, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
- I could probably find something that mentions that [ʌ] and [ə] are in complementary distribution with the former being in stressed syllables and the latter in unstressed ones. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 01:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
