In
phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic ''quality'' of
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s as a result of changes in
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
,
sonority,
duration
Duration may refer to:
* The amount of time elapsed between two events
* Duration (music) – an amount of time or a particular time interval, often cited as one of the fundamental aspects of music
* Duration (philosophy) – a theory of time and ...
, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for the
Creek language
The Muscogee language (Muskogee, ''Mvskoke'' in Muscogee), also known as Creek, is a Muskogean language spoken by Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole people, primarily in the US states of Oklahoma and Florida. Along with Mikasuki, when it is spoken by ...
), and which are perceived as "weakening". It most often makes the vowels shorter as well.
Vowels which have undergone vowel reduction may be called ''reduced'' or ''weak''. In contrast, an unreduced vowel may be described as ''full'' or ''strong''.
Transcription
There are several ways to distinguish full and reduced vowels in transcription. Some English dictionaries mark full vowels for secondary stress, so that e.g. is a full unstressed vowel while is a reduced, unstressed ''schwi''. Or the vowel quality may be portrayed as distinct, with reduced vowels centralized, such as full vs reduced or . Since the IPA only supplies letters for two reduced vowels, open and mid , transcribers of languages such as RP English and Russian that have more than these two vary in their choice between an imprecise use of IPA letters such as and , or of custom non-IPA (extended IPA) letters such as and .
Weakening of vowel articulation
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 approaching
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
. A well-researched type of reduction is that of the neutralization of acoustic distinctions in
unstressed vowel
In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...
s, which occurs in many languages. The most common reduced vowel is
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
.
Whereas full vowels are distinguished by height, backness, and roundness, according to , reduced unstressed vowels are largely unconcerned with height or roundness. English , for example, may range phonetically from mid to to open ; English ranges from close , , , to open-mid . The primary distinction is that is further front than , contrasted in the numerous English words ending in unstressed ''-ia.'' That is, the jaw, which to a large extent controls vowel height, tends to be relaxed when pronouncing reduced vowels. Similarly, English ranges through and ; although it may be labialized to varying degrees, the lips are relaxed in comparison to , , or . The primary distinction in words like ''folio'' is again one of backness. However, the backness distinction is not as great as that of full vowels; reduced vowels are also
centralized
Centralisation or centralization (see spelling differences) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, framing strategy and policies become concentrated within a particu ...
, and are sometimes referred to by that term. They may also be called ''obscure,'' as there is no one-to-one correspondence between full and reduced vowels.
Sound duration is a common factor in reduction: In fast speech, vowels are reduced due to physical limitations of the articulatory organs, e.g., the tongue cannot move to a prototypical position fast or completely enough to produce a full-quality vowel (compare with
clipping
Clipping may refer to:
Words
* Clipping (morphology), the formation of a new word by shortening it, e.g. "ad" from "advertisement"
* Clipping (phonetics), shortening the articulation of a speech sound, usually a vowel
* Clipping (publications) ...
). Different languages have different types of vowel reduction, and this is one of the difficulties in
language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to ...
(see e.g.
Non-native pronunciations of English
Non-native pronunciations of English result from the common linguistic phenomenon in which non-native users of any language tend to carry the intonation, phonological processes and pronunciation rules from their first language or first languages ...
and
Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages
The following is a list of common non-native pronunciations that English speakers make when trying to speak foreign languages. Many of these are due to transfer of phonological rules from English to the new language as well as differences in gramm ...
). Vowel reduction of
second language
A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a fo ...
speakers is a separate study.
Stress-related vowel reduction is a principal factor in the development of
Indo-European ablaut
In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German ''Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE).
An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its ...
, as well as other changes reconstructed by
historical linguistics
Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include:
# to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages
# ...
.
Vowel reduction is one of the sources of distinction between a
spoken language
A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a si ...
and its
written counterpart. Vernacular and formal speech often have different levels of vowel reduction, and so the term "vowel reduction" is also applied to differences in a
language variety
In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called an isolect or lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.Meecham, Ma ...
with respect to, e.g., the
language standard
The literary norm or linguistic norm or linguistic standard or language norm is a historically determined set of commonly used language assets, as well as rules for their selection and use, which have been recognized by society as the most appropri ...
.
Some languages, such as
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
,
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
, and classical
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
, are claimed to lack vowel reduction. Such languages are often called
syllable-timed language
Isochrony is the postulated rhythmic division of time into equal portions by a language. Rhythm is an aspect of prosody, others being intonation, stress, and tempo of speech.
Three alternative ways in which a language can divide time are postul ...
s. At the other end of the spectrum,
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish ( es, español mexicano) is the variety of Dialect, dialects and Sociolect, sociolects of the Spanish language spoken in Mexican territory. Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers, with more than twice as many as in a ...
is characterized by the reduction or loss of the unstressed vowels, mainly when they are in contact with the sound . It can be the case that the words ''pesos'', ''pesas'', and ''peces'' are pronounced the same: .
Vowel inventory reduction
In some cases phonetic vowel reduction may contribute to
''phonemic'' (phonological) reduction, which means merger of
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s, induced by indistinguishable pronunciation. This sense of vowel reduction may occur by means other than vowel centralisation, however.
Many Germanic languages, in their early stages, reduced the number of vowels that could occur in unstressed syllables, without (or before) clearly showing centralisation.
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
and its early descendant
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
still allowed more or less the full complement of vowels and diphthongs to appear in unstressed syllables, except notably short , which merged with . In early
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
and
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It i ...
, this had been reduced to five vowels (i, e, a, o, u, some with length distinction), later reduced further to just three short vowels (i/e, a, o/u). In
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
, likewise, only three vowels were written in unstressed syllables: a, i and u (their exact phonetic quality is unknown).
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
, meanwhile, distinguished only e, a, and u (again the exact phonetic quality is unknown).
Specific languages
English
Stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
is a prominent feature of the
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
, 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 (
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
) or with certain other vowels that are described as being "reduced" (or sometimes with a
syllabic consonant
A syllabic consonant or vocalic consonant is a consonant that forms a syllable on its own, like the ''m'', ''n'' and ''l'' in some pronunciations of the English words ''rhythm'', ''button'' and ''bottle''. To represent it, the understroke diacrit ...
as the syllable nucleus rather than a vowel). Various
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
analyses exist for these phenomena.
Latin
Old Latin
Old Latin, also known as Early Latin or Archaic Latin (Classical la, prīsca Latīnitās, lit=ancient Latinity), was the Latin language in the period before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin. It descends from a common Proto-Italic ...
had initial stress, and short vowels in non-initial syllables were frequently reduced. Long vowels were usually not reduced.
Vowels reduced in different ways depending on the phonological environment. For instance, in most cases, they reduced to . Before ''l pinguis'', an not followed by , they became Old Latin and Classical Latin . Before and some consonant clusters, they became .
* , * > Old Latin , "make, affect"
: , * > , "made, affected" (
participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
s)
* , * > Old Latin , "I jump, I jump on"
* > Latin , "I give birth, I gave birth"
In
Classical Latin
Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later periods ...
, stress
changed position and so in some cases, reduced vowels became stressed. Stress moved to the penult if it was
heavy
Heavy may refer to:
Measures
* Heavy (aeronautics), a term used by pilots and air traffic controllers to refer to aircraft capable of 300,000 lbs or more takeoff weight
* Heavy, a characterization of objects with substantial weight
* Heavy, ...
or to the antepenult otherwise.
*Classical Latin ,
: ,
* ,
Romance languages
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...
had seven vowels in stressed syllables (). In unstressed syllables, merged into and merged into , yielding five possible vowels. Some
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
, like
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
, maintain this system, while others have made adjustments to the number of vowels permitted in stressed syllables, the number of vowels permitted in unstressed syllables, or both. Some Romance languages, like
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
,
French and
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
**Romanian cuisine, traditional ...
, lack vowel reduction altogether.
Italian
Standard
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
has seven stressed vowels and five unstressed vowels, as in Vulgar Latin. Some
regional varieties of the language, influenced by
local vernaculars, do not distinguish open and closed e and o even in stressed syllables.
Neapolitan
Neapolitan
Neapolitan means of or pertaining to Naples, a city in Italy; or to:
Geography and history
* Province of Naples, a province in the Campania region of southern Italy that includes the city
* Duchy of Naples, in existence during the Early and Hig ...
has seven stressed vowels and only four unstressed vowels, with e and o merging into . At the end of a word, unstressed a also merges with e and o, reducing the number of vowels permitted in this position to three.
Sicilian
Sicilian has five stressed vowels () and three unstressed vowels, with merging into and merging into . Unlike Neapolitan, Catalan or Portuguese, Sicilian incorporates this vowel reduction into its orthography.
Catalan
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
has seven or eight vowels in stressed syllables and three, four or five vowels in unstressed syllables, depending on dialect. The Valencian dialect has five, as in Vulgar Latin. Majorcan merges unstressed and , and central Catalan further merges unstressed and .
Portuguese
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
has seven or eight vowels in stressed syllables (). The vowels and , which are not phonemically distinct in all dialects, merge in unstressed syllables. In most cases, unstressed syllables may have one of five vowels (), but there is a sometimes unpredictable tendency for to merge with and to merge with . For instance some speakers pronounce the first syllable of ''dezembro'' ("December") differently from the first syllable of ''dezoito'' ("eighteen"), with the latter being more reduced. There are also instances of and being distinguished from and in unstressed syllables, especially to avoid ambiguity. The verb ''pregar'' ("to nail") is distinct from ''pregar'' ("to preach"), and the latter verb was historically spelled ''prègar'' to reflect that its unstressed is not reduced.
Portuguese phonology
The phonology of Portuguese varies Portuguese dialects, among dialects, in extreme cases leading to some Mutual intelligibility, difficulties in intelligibility. Portuguese is a pluricentric language and has some of the most diverse sound variation ...
is further complicated by its variety of dialects, particularly the differences between
European Portuguese
European Portuguese ( pt, português europeu, ), also known as Portuguese of Portugal (Portuguese: português de Portugal), Iberian Portuguese (Portuguese: português ibérico), and Peninsular Portuguese (Portuguese: português peninsular), refer ...
and
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...
, as well as the differences between the respective dialects of the two varieties.
Slavic languages
Bulgarian
In the
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian (, ; bg, label=none, български, bălgarski, ) is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria. It is the language of the Bulgarians.
Along with the closely related Macedonian la ...
the vowels ''а''
''ъ''
''о''
and ''е''
can be partially or fully reduced, depending on the dialect, when unstressed to
and
respectively. The most prevalent is
>
>
and
>
which, in its partial form, is considered correct in literary speech. The reduction
>
is prevalent in the eastern dialects of the language and is not considered formally correct.
Russian
There are six vowel phonemes in Standard Russian. Vowels tend to merge when they are unstressed. The vowels and have the same unstressed allophones for a number of dialects and reduce to a schwa. Unstressed may become more central if it does not merge with .
Other types of reduction are phonetic, such as that of the high vowels ( and ), which become near-close; этап ('stage') is pronounced , and мужчина ('man') is pronounced .
Early Slavic languages
Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the Attested language, unattested, linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately ...
had two short high vowels known as
yer
A yer is either of two letters in Cyrillic alphabets, ъ (ѥръ, ''jerŭ'') and ь (ѥрь, ''jerĭ''). The Glagolitic alphabet used, as respective counterparts, the letters (Ⱏ) and (Ⱐ). They originally represented phonemically the "ult ...
s: a short high front vowel, denoted as ĭ or ь, and a short back vowel, denoted as ŭ or ъ. Both vowels underwent reduction and were eventually deleted in certain positions in a word in the early Slavic languages, beginning from the late dialects of Proto-Slavic. The process is known as
Havlík's law
Havlík's law is a Slavic rhythmic law dealing with the reduced vowels (known as yers or jers) in Proto-Slavic. It is named for the Czech scholar Antonín Havlík (1855–1925), who determined the pattern in 1889. While Havlík's law was a precurso ...
.
Irish
In general, short vowels in
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
are all reduced to
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
() in unstressed syllables, but there are some exceptions. In
Munster Irish
Munster Irish () is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Munster. Gaeltacht regions in Munster are found in the Gaeltachtaí of the Dingle Peninsula in west County Kerry, in the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, in Cape ...
, if the third syllable of a word is stressed and the preceding two syllables are short, the first of the two unstressed syllables is ''not'' reduced to schwa; instead it receives a secondary stress, e.g. ('scythe-man'). Also in Munster Irish, an unstressed short vowel is not reduced to schwa if the following syllable contains a stressed or , e.g. ('art'), ('gather'). In
Ulster Irish
Ulster Irish ( ga, Gaeilig Uladh, IPA=, IPA ga=ˈɡeːlʲɪc ˌʊlˠuː) is the variety of Irish spoken in the province of Ulster. It "occupies a central position in the Gaelic world made up of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man". Ulster Iri ...
, long vowels in unstressed syllables are shortened but are not reduced to schwa, e.g. ('girl'), ('gallon').
See also
*
Clipping (phonetics)
In phonetics, clipping is the process of shortening the articulation of a phonetic segment, usually a vowel. A clipped vowel is pronounced more quickly than an unclipped vowel and is often also reduced.
Examples
Dutch
Particularly in Netherlan ...
*
Elision
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
*
Silent letter
In an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation. In linguistics, a silent letter is often symbolised with a null sign . Null is an unpronounc ...
*
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
*
Unstressed vowel
In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
{{authority control
Phonetics
Stress (linguistics)
Phonology