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The schwa / ə / is usually considered neither free nor checked because it cannot stand in stressed syllables. In non-rhotic dialects, non-prevocalic instances of / ɜːr / as in purr, burr and / ər / as in lett er , bann er pattern as vowels, with the former often being the long counterpart of the latter and little to no difference in quality ...
A heavy syllable is generally one with a branching rime, i.e. it is either a closed syllable that ends in a consonant, or a syllable with a branching nucleus, i.e. a long vowel or diphthong. The name is a metaphor, based on the nucleus or coda having lines that branch in a tree diagram.
In the word button, both syllables are closed syllables (but. ton) because they contain single vowels followed by consonants. Therefore, the letter u represents the short sound / ʌ /. (The o in the second syllable makes the / ə / sound because it is an unstressed syllable.) Open syllables are syllables in which a vowel appears at the end of ...
Philadelphia/Baltimore exceptions include the New York exceptions listed above, as well as the following: When a polysyllabic word with /æ/ in an open syllable gets truncated to a single closed syllable, the vowel remains lax: caf (truncation of cafeteria) has /æ/, not /ɛə/ like calf
A syllable with a branching rime is a closed syllable, that is, one with a coda (one or more consonants at the end of the syllable); this type of syllable is abbreviated CVC. In some languages, both CVV and CVC syllables are heavy, while a syllable with a short vowel as the nucleus and no coda (a CV syllable) is a light syllable. In other ...
The term "consonant gradation" refers to a word-medial alternation of consonants between fortis and lenis realisations. The fortis strong grade appears in historically open syllables (ending in a vowel), while the lenis weak grade appears in historically closed syllables (ending in a consonant).
In New Zealand English, the merger is complete, and indeed, /ɪ/ is very centralized even in stressed syllables and so it is usually regarded as the same phoneme as /ə/ although in -ing, it is closer to [i]. In South African English, most speakers have the merger, but in more conservative accents, the contrast may be retained (as [ɪ̈] vs. [ə].
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. [1] Examples of semivowels in English are y and w in yes and west, respectively.