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Weakening of vowels

Phonetic reduction most often involves a 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.

Such vowel reduction is one of the sources of distinction between a spoken language 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 with respect to, e.g., the language standard.

A well-researched type of reduction is that of the neutralization of acoustic distinctions in unstressed vowels, which occurs in many languages. The most common reduced vowel is schwa.

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: clipping (phonetics). Different languages have different types of vowel reduction, and this is one of the difficulties in language acquisition; see, e.g., "Non-native pronunciations of English" and "Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages". Vowel reduction of second language speakers is a separate study.

Some languages, such as Finnish, Hindi, and classical Spanish, are claimed to lack vowel reduction. At the other end of the spectrum, Slovene has a stressed reduced vowel: /e/ appears as schwa [ə] in some reducing environments (such as /er/ when no other vowel is adjacent), even when the syllable is stressed.

Stress-related vowel reduction is a principal factor in the development of Indo-European ablaut, as well as other changes reconstructed by historical linguistics.

Questions to be discussed:

1. What is the vocalism?

2. What can you say about vowel system of English language?

3. Speak about unstressed vowels of English language.

4. What is the vowel reduction?

5. Speak about weakening of vowels.

Читайте також:

1. Accommodation of OE Vowels (breaking and diphthongisation).
2. Changes of Short Vowels in Early New English
3. Changes of Stressed Vowels in Early Old English
4. Changes of Unstressed Vowels in Early Old English
5. Main Trends in the Changes of Stressed Vowels
6. OE Vowels (monophthongs)
7. Principal Changes of Vowels in Middle English and Early New English (Tables)
8. Quantitative and qualitative changes of vowels and consonants in the history of English
9. System of Vowels in Late Middle English
10. Unit 1 Sound revision. Vowels in contrast
11. Unstressed Vowels

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