Reduced Vowels American English Pronunciation
I want to share with you an email that I
recently received hi Rachel I’d really
like to see a video about reduced vowel
sounds in American English I mean the
sound Americans produce in words like
roses wanted profit plastic before
because and so on in unstressed
syllables are they all choise please I’d
love a lesson on these sounds because
I’m really confused about this Thanks
thank you for this question this is an
excellent question and I want to start
by saying that not all unstressed
syllables in American English have a
reduced vowel for example profit and
plastic both of these are examples when
they retain that it as in sit sound it
is unaccented and so that means the
duration of the vowel is not as long and
because the vowel doesn’t have quite as
long it often doesn’t quite solidify
into that very clear it sound but it is
still considered and written in IPA as
the is sound retaining its vowel profit
plastic and I will do another blog later
on other vowels that do retain
themselves within an unstressed syllable
now for vowel reduction the schwa is the
most common reduced vowel sound it’s
also the most common vowel sound period
in American English so you’re probably
familiar with it some examples sofa
about I believe in the how-to video I
described it as the position as if you
were going to not say anything about
sofa everything is very neutral central
relaxed now there is a second reduced
vowel sound and I want to say at the
beginning that I don’t believe it is a
part of the general American English
international phonetic alphabet meaning
I have not ever seen it for example on
dictionary.com or the Cambridge
dictionary when I look up the
transcription of a word I have how
I’ve seen it in some scholarly journals
and it denotes a sound that I think is
worth talking about this second sound is
called the Bard I a phrase that shows
the difference between the two sounds is
roses roses Rosa
being a name ending in a schwa sound now
when we add the apostrophe s to show
possession roses the schwa is in tact
roses being the plural of rose has the
second bard I sound roses roses it’s a
subtle difference what is the difference
as I said it’s a little higher in the
mouth because the tongue comes up just a
little bit on Rosa the schwa my tongue
is laying on the bottom of my mouth Rosa
when I say Rosa’s the tongue moves up
just a little bit it doesn’t come up as
much as for the e as in sit but it does
come up a little bit to raise that sound
roses roses another very subtle
difference in the mouth position for
this is as I said the tongue comes up a
bit but also the corners of the mouth
come out ever so slightly roses roses
it’s just a real slight pull there on
both sides here is a photo illustration
the very slight difference in the corner
of the mouth on the left is the schwa
and on the right is the bard eye you can
see here in the corners of the mouth for
the bard eye that they come slightly up
and back also the teeth are slightly
further apart in the bard I found this
is to accommodate the slight rising of
the tongue I’m going to read a set of
paired words that comes from a scholarly
paper that I did come across on the
internet and I will have it for download
on my web page the first set of words or
the first word in each pair rather is a
noun showing possession and that noun
ends in the schwa sound the schwa sound
remains intact when you add the s for
possession the second
word in each of these word pairs is a
plural noun and it’s the same as in
roses roses the schwa is in the first
word and this bard I is in the second
word roses roses leases leases rushes
Russians asia’s ages ninjas hinges did
you notice how in the second of each of
those word pairs the second sound was
closer to the ear as in sit than the
schwa which was the first sound you may
be wondering when to use which of these
two vowel sounds as I said if a word
ends in a schwa and you add a suffix for
example an S to make a noun plural then
the schwa remains like sofas if it’s a
noun that ends in an e that is not a
schwa and you add an S to make it plural
like roses then that would be a case
where it would be the bard I sound if
you’re feeling confused or are having
problems identifying the difference in
these two sounds please don’t worry
it’s rather subtle and as I said I have
not ever seen this bard
I sound in IPA outside of these
technical papers I want to take a minute
to go back to the original email roses
as discussed the bard I sound prophet
plastic also as discussed these two do
have unaccented syllables but the vowel
is not reduced
they both retain the e as in sit vowel
sound wanted before and because these
three words to my ears work with either
of the reduced vowel sounds the bard
I or the schwa I will read them first
using a schwa wanted because before and
now with the bard I wanted because
before to me they work either way the
difference between these two reduced
vowels is the