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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 ...
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 ...
For example, the first o in photograph, being stressed, is pronounced with the GOAT vowel, but in photography, where it is unstressed, it is reduced to schwa. Also, certain common words ( a , an , of , for , etc.) are pronounced with a schwa when they are unstressed, although they have different vowels when they are in a stressed position (see ...
In particular, vowels in unstressed syllables may have a more central (or "neutral") articulation, and those in stressed syllables have a more peripheral articulation. Stress may be realized to varying degrees on different words in a sentence; sometimes, the difference is minimal between the acoustic signals of stressed and those of unstressed ...
In hiatus, unstressed front vowels become /j/, and unstressed back vowels become /w/, as in /ˈfiːlius, ˈsapuiː/ > /ˈfiːljus, ˈsapwiː/. [14] The same process also affects stressed front and back vowels in hiatus if they are antepenultimate (in the third-to-last syllable of a word).
In this example, the underline means that the /t/ or /d/ that becomes flapped must be in between two vowels (where the first is stressed and the second is not). The sound, or the features of the sound, that follows the one to be changed. In this example, the /t/ or /d/ that becomes flapped must be followed by an unstressed vowel.
Reduction and loss of unstressed vowels: Remaining unstressed vowels merged into /ə/. Starting around 1400 AD, /ə/ is lost in final syllables. Initial clusters /hɾ/, /hl/, /hn/ were reduced by loss of /h/. Voiced fricatives became independent phonemes through borrowing and other sound changes. /sw/ before back vowel becomes /s/; /mb/ becomes ...
Trisyllabic laxing, or trisyllabic shortening, is any of three processes in English in which tense vowels (long vowels or diphthongs) become lax (short monophthongs) if they are followed by two or more syllables, at least the first of which is unstressed, for example, grateful vs gratitude, profound vs profundity.