Vowel reduction in English

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Main article: Vowel reduction

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 cannot be reduced.

Contents

[edit] Reduced vowels

Schwa is the most common reduced vowel in English, 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 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 near-close central unrounded vowel /ɪ̈/ (or equivalently /ɨ̞/), sometimes called "schwi". In the British phonetic tradition, this is written /ɪ/, and in the American tradition /ɨ/. (The OED has recently[1] converted to /ɪ̵/.) 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

(See Phonological history of English high front vowels.)

Many dialects also retain rounding in reduced vowels, with /uː/ and /ʊ/ reducing to [ʊ̈] (or equivalently /ʉ̞/; /ʊ̵/ in OED transcription), and /oʊ/ reducing to /ɵ/.

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/.

These reduced vowels contrast in the word parallelepipedal IPA: /ˌpærəlɛlᵻˈpɪpɛdl̩/, and in some dialects idler /ˈaɪdl̩ɚ/.

The vowels and diphthongs /ɔː/, /aʊ/, and /ɔɪ/ are never reduced, and all vowels may occur in unstressed position without reduction, especially in compound words. (These are often transcribed in dictionaries as having secondary stress, but that is a convention for unreduced vowels that occur after the primary stress. See secondary stress.)

Unstressed but unreduced vowels
vowel example pronunciation
/iː/ wily [ˈwaɪliː]
/ɪ/ chauvinism [ˈʃoʊvɨnɪzm]
/eɪ/ Monday [ˈmʌndeɪ]
/ɛ/ enlist [ɛnˈlɪst]
/æ/ valet [væˈleɪ]
/ʌ/ unknown [ʌnˈnoʊn]
/ɑː/ grandma [ˈgræmɑː]
/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, it is true that some vowels, such as /ɪ/ and /ʌ/, reduce quite readily, so that there are not many English words which have them in unstressed positions.

[edit] Alternation

Main article: weak form and strong form

Some English 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.[2] Similarly with to: to America /tuː/ vs. to Britain /tə/. Most words, however, alternate depending on how much emphasis they are accorded. Some of these are:[2]

  • can: /kæn/, but also I can go /ˈaɪ kŋ ɡoʊ/,
  • and: /ænd/, but also you and me /ˌjuː ən ˈmiː/,
  • he: /hiː/, but also will he go? /ˈwɪl ɪ goʊ/,

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, 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/.[3]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ c. 2005
  2. ^ a b Ladefoged, A Course in Phonetics
  3. ^ OED

[edit] See also