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Each of the five vowels occurs in both stressed and unstressed syllables: [70] Examples of Spanish vowels stressed unstressed word gloss word gloss piso
Spanish has only two degrees of stress. In traditional transcription, primary stress is marked with an acute accent (´) over the vowel. "Combining breve below" marks may be used to emphasize the "liaison" of syllables in Spanish vocal music. Unstressed parts of a word are left unmarked.
If that results in a collision of identical short vowels, they simply form the corresponding long vowel, as in /koˈhorte/ > /ˈkoːrte/. [2] Final (unstressed) /m/ is lost without a trace in polysyllabic words, as in /ˈnunkʷam/ > /ˈnunkʷa/. [3] In (stressed) monosyllables it tends to survive as /n/, as in /ˈkʷem/ > /ˈkʷen/ > Spanish ...
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 ).
There are two kinds of changes that can affect stem vowels of some Spanish verbs: diphthongization and vowel raising. Both changes affect -e-or -o-in the last (or only) syllable of a verb stem. Diphthongization changes -e-to -ie-, and -o-to -ue-. Vowel raising changes the mid vowels-e-and -o-to the corresponding high vowels: -i-and -u-respectively.
The presence of a consonant coda also affects vowel length. Vowels are short in closed syllables (but not as short as unstressed syllables) and long in open syllables. There is also an interaction between tone and vowel length. Vowels with a mid tone are long while with a low tone are "pulsated".
Although the vowels of Spanish are relatively stable from one dialect to another, the phenomenon of vowel reduction—devoicing or even loss—of unstressed vowels in contact with voiceless consonants, especially /s/, can be observed in the speech of central Mexico (including Mexico City).
Mainly in speakers with a limited command of Spanish, seseo, that is, the phoneme /θ/ is realized as [s]. Also for speakers with a limited command of Spanish, and very rare nowadays, the Spanish phoneme /x/ used to be realized as [k]. Vowels. The high vowels /i, u/ are more open than in Spanish. Unstressed /i, u/ are centralized. [1]