Vowel reduction
In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic quality of vowels, which are related to changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for Creek language[1]), and which are perceived as "weakening". It most often makes the vowels shorter as well.
In phonology, vowel reduction is a reduction of the number of distinct vowels, rather than their quality, either over time or when comparing related dialects. In some cases these two concepts may be related. For example, when vowels are phonetically reduced in English, there is also a reduction in the number of vowel contrasts. In other cases, however, phonemic reduction is due to historical vowel mergers (such as the merger of the vowels in Mary, merry, marry in much of the United States) and has nothing to do with "weakening".
Such a vowel may be called reduced or weak. An unreduced vowel may be contrasted as full or strong.
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. 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.
Whereas full vowels are distinguished by height, backness, and roundness, according to Bolinger (1989), reduced unstressed vowels are largely unconcerned with height or roundness. English /ə/, for example, may range phonetically from mid [ə] to [ɐ] to open [a]; English /ɨ/ ranges from close [i], [ɪ], [e], to open-mid [ɛ]. The primary distinction is that /ɨ/ is further front than /ə/, 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 /ɵ/ ranges through [ʊ] and [o]; although it may be labialized to varying degrees, the lips are relaxed in comparison to /uː/, /ou/, or /ɔː/. 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, 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. (Bolinger 1989:347)
Centralisation isn't the only form of reduction, 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. In Old Norse, for example, only three vowels were written in unstressed syllables: a, i and u (their exact phonetic quality is unknown). Old English, meanwhile, distinguished only e, a, and u (or o). Catalan, a Romance language, also shows reduction, but in differing degrees depending on dialect. The Valencian dialect reduces the number of possible vowels from seven to five in unstressed environments, merging [ɛ] into [e] and [ɔ] into [o]. The central Catalan dialect goes even further, distinguishing only [i], [u] and [ə] or [ɐ], with [ɛ] and [e] becoming [ə] and [ɔ] and [o] merging into [u].
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.
Stress-related vowel reduction is a principal factor in the development of Indo-European ablaut, as well as other changes reconstructed by historical linguistics.
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.
Some languages, such as Finnish, Hindi, and classical Spanish, are claimed to lack vowel reduction. Such languages are often called syllable-timed languages.[2] At the other end of the spectrum, Mexican Spanish is characterized by the reduction or loss of the unstressed vowels, mainly when they are in contact with the sound /s/.[3][4] It can be the case that the words pesos, pesas, and peces are pronounced the same: [ˈpesə̥s]. In the same way, Slovene[5] 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.
Specific languages
Reduction in number of vowels
In phonology, however, vowel reduction generally refers to changes in the number of vowels during the evolution of a language, or across genetically related languages, rather than weakening of individual vowels.
An example is provided by Japonic languages. Proto-Japanese had 8 vowels; this has been reduced to 5 in modern Japanese language, but in Yaeyama language the vowel reduction has progressed further, to 3 vowels.
See also
References
- ^ Acoustic vowel reduction in Creek: Effects of distinctive length and position in the word (pdf)
- ^ R. M. Dauer. "Stress-timing and syllable-timing reanalysed". Journal of Phonetics. 11:51–62 (1983).
- ^ Eleanor Greet Cotton, John M. Sharp (1988) Spanish in the Americas, Volumen 2, pp.154–155, URL
- ^ Lope Blanch, Juan M. (1972) En torno a las vocales caedizas del español mexicano, pp. 53–73, Estudios sobre el español de México, editorial Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México URL.
- ^ Comparison between humans and machines on the task of accentuation of Slovene Words