Unstressed vowels undergo vowel reduction. The vowel reduction means the vowel sound becoming unclear and shorter. By this way, we can speed through unstressed syllables. The vowel reduction mainly happens due to vowel centralization. Vowel centralization means that unstressed vowels are pronounced in the center area of the vowel chart. Vowels pronounced in the center area are lax, reduced, weak and less noticeable. For this reason, they are called lax vowels. The lax vowels in English are /ɪ, ʊ/ and the schwa. For example, ‘been’ in dictionary pronunciation is [bin]: [i] is called tense vowel. But when used in speech, it sounds like [bɪn]. These words also have the tense vowel [i] as their dictionary pronunciation: be, he, me, she, and we. But when used in speech, their vowel may be the reduced form, [ɪ].
“she’s” [ʃɪz], not [ʃiz]
“he’ll” [hɪl], not [hil]
“we’re” [wɪr], not [wir]
Most commonly, unstressed vowels approach the mid-central vowel, called schwa [ə] which sounds like “uh”. Schwa occurs only in unstressed syllables. Schwa is characterized by such features as shortness, laxness and central position. Schwa is not an exact sound, but a lazy sound, used to facilitate fast speaking.
Schwa happens in two cases: multi syllable words and function words. When a word has two or more syllables, the vowel of the stressed syllable is fully pronounced, but the vowel of the unstressed syllable is usually reduced to the schwa sound.
America ə ME rə kə
bacon BAK ən
ribbon RiB ən
animals AN ə məlz
potato pə TAY də
symbol SYM bəl
officer OFF ə sər
president PRE zə dənt
Function words are grammar particle words like articles, auxiliary verbs, pronouns, conjunctions and prepositions. In a phrase or sentence, these function words are usually not stressed, so are greatly reduced. They are spoken quickly and unnoticeably. The degree of reduction depends on the rate of speech delivery. The faster the speech is, the greater the reduction is. These are some examples of function word reduction:
Of [əv, ə]
From [frəm], [frm]
To [tə]
That [thət]
Your [jɚ]
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