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1 Causes of vowel reduction in English: an argument from word-final consonants
BibTeX
@MISC{Lel_1causes,
author = {Sarah Collie Lel},
title = {1 Causes of vowel reduction in English: an argument from word-final consonants},
year = {}
}
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Abstract
For English, it is generally argued that there is a symmetrical relationship between vowel reduction and stress, such that the ‘reduced ’ vowel schwa is unstressed, and all other vowels (i.e. ‘full ’ vowels) are stressed (e.g. Ross, 1972; Halle & Vergnaud, 1987; Pater, 2000). This assumption leads to a number of complications in the stress system of English, notably Elfner’s (2007) proposal for stress assignment which is sensitive to the place of articulation of word-final stops. Elfner (2007) is the most recent treatment of phenomena noted by Ross (1972). Ross observes a contrast in the reduction of vowels preceding word-final stops in certain nouns: vowels preceding word-final coronal stops have a tendency to reduce, as in the examples (1), whereas those preceding final velar and labial stops tend to be full, as in the examples in (2) (pronunciations for British English from Wells (2000)). (1) Word-final coronal stops chariot [] cheviot [] Connecticut [] idiot [] Iliad [/æ] Lilliput [/] Mohammed [//] myriad [] period [] (2) Word-final velar and labials stops
