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Cardinal vowel chart showing peripheral (white) and central (blue) vowel space, based on the chart in Collins & Mees (2003:227). Phonetic reduction most often involves a mid-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 ...
Stress is a prominent feature of the English language, both at the level of the word (lexical stress) and at the level of the phrase or sentence (prosodic stress).Absence of stress on a syllable, or on a word in some cases, is frequently associated in English with vowel reduction – many such syllables are pronounced with a centralized vowel or with certain other vowels that are described as ...
Examples of words where vowel reduction seems to be distinctive for some speakers [78] include chickaree vs. chicory (the latter has the reduced vowel of HAPPY, whereas the former has the FLEECE vowel without reduction), and Pharaoh vs. farrow (both have the GOAT vowel, but in the latter word it may reduce to [ɵ]).
In many languages, such as Russian and English, vowel reduction may occur when a vowel changes from a stressed to an unstressed position. In English, unstressed vowels may reduce to schwa -like vowels, though the details vary with dialect (see stress and vowel reduction in English ).
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by /r/ in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by /r/ that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions, so fewer vowel phonemes occur before /r/ than in other positions of a word.
Reduction to /h/ before rounded vowels (due to /hw/ being perceived as a /h/ with the labialization characteristic of that environment). This occurred with the word how in the Old English period, and with who , whom and whose in Middle English (the latter words having had an unrounded vowel in Old English).
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) uses a breve ˘ to indicate a speech sound (usually a vowel) with extra-short duration. That is, [ă] is a very short vowel with the quality of [a]. An example from English is the short schwa of the word police [pə̆ˈliˑs]. [1] This is typical of vowel reduction.
There are two complementary definitions of vowel, one phonetic and the other phonological.. In the phonetic definition, a vowel is a sound, such as the English "ah" / ɑː / or "oh" / oʊ /, produced with an open vocal tract; it is median (the air escapes along the middle of the tongue), oral (at least some of the airflow must escape through the mouth), frictionless and continuant. [4]