ENG 478/678

Some problems and issues in phonetics

STRESS
In English, stress affects the wa we pronounce words, and therefore must be ta!en into account in an phonetic
transcription sstem" #he main effect $for our purposes% will be on &owels, an effect !nown as '&owel
reduction"'
Words of one syllable, as far as we are concerned, will all have primary stress" $In real speech there is a
broad class of e(ceptions, but we will ignore the e(ceptions for now"% So each one)sllable word will be
transcribed simpl as pronounced" *or e(ample,
+,S#
SIN+E
In words of two or more sllables, howe&er, we will ha&e onl one sllable with primar stress, and one $or
more% unstressed sllables" -ther sllables ma ha&e some stress, but not as much as the primar)stressed
sllable. this is called secondar stress" Syllables with primary or secondary stress will all contain full
vowels, as in the words abo&e" /ut &owels in an unstressed sllable ma undergo '&owel reduction"' #he
result is the reduced vowel, for which we use the phonetic smbol 'schwa' " *or e(ample,

,G0IN
10GNI*2
#3N45,
S6778SE
Notice that in the first sllable of 'tundra' we use the 'caret' to smboli9e the full vowel in mid central
la( position, while the similar)sounding but shorter 'schwa' is used in the second sllable to smboli9e
the reduced vowel"
Not all unstressed &owels are necessaril reduced" In words li!e '8N:2' ;onli< and in most compound
words $'mi(up'% an unstressed &owel is still full" /ut most of the time, the unstressed &owel will reduce to
schwa" =hen I gi&e ou words of two or more sllables to transcribe, I will indicate stress"
Practice
#ranscribe the following words" 1a!e sure ou gi&e them normal pronunciation>


,13SE
+-110N4
70:,+E
*,+04E
73NIS?
+8##,GE
SYLLALES, !"WELS, A#$ SYLLA%& &"#S"#A#TS
-ne of the definitions of the &owel specifies that it is the 'nucleus of the sllable"' #hat means that a &owel is
the one essential element of the sllable" In other words, however many consonants a syllable may have
'from (ero to n) it will have one, and only one, vowel"
Some sllables ha&e onl one &owel> -=E ;o<
Some ha&e the structure +@> 7,2 ;pe<
Some ha&e the structure ++@+> +:-SE ;!lo9< etc"
:isten to the second sllable, howe&er, in a word li!e 4,2#-N or +E5#,IN" Each has two sllables, but in
normal $moderate or fast speech% pronunciation, the e(act nature of the &owel in the second sllable is unclear))
it doesnAt actuall seem to e(ist" /oth sllables sound li!e B;tn<" /ut we Cust said that the &owel is the nucleus
of e&er sllable. so a &owel has to be present in some form"
-ne solution $which we will adopt, following our te(tboo!% is to allow for certain consonants to function as
'sllabic consonants"' , sllabic consonant is a consonant which functions li!e a &owel in that it can be the
nucleus of a sllable" -ne wa of understanding this is to imagine that a &owel has been reduced past the point
of being a 'schwa' to where it has no independent identit at all" It has been blended with or swallowed up b
the consonant after it" #his is true of the second sllable in 4,2#-N"
It is possible to articulate the word slowl and actuall sa , where the ;t< is released into
the which is followed b the ;n<" /ut in normal pronunciation, there is no 'space' between the
;t< and the ;n<" =e show this when we ma!e the ;n< a sllabic consonant, represented as " #he
&er small line under the phonetic smbol represents the &owel which is a part of the sllabic consonant"
?ere are the four sllabic consonants, with a few e(amples of their use>
sllabic as in 1,4,1E or +-:61N
sllabic as in +E5#,IN or :E1-N
sllabic as in :I##:E or +,@,:52
sllabic as in E,GE5 or 7E5NI+I-6S
5emember that there are onl these four sllabic consonants, and that each represents a reduced vowel
followed by the consonant" /ecause this is true, an alternati&e representation of each would be schwa plus the
consonant" In other words>
is the same as
is the same as
is the same as , and
is the same as