Marshall,
The stigmatized initial stress of words like "insurance", "insure", "umbrella", "guitar", "Detroit", "Vermont", etc. all represent the Germanic Stress Shift, the change that phonemicized the voicing alternation known as Verner's Law. This stress shift probably took place about 2000 years ago. Non-standard dilaects of English that use initial stress on words like those I listed are consistently exhibiting the results of the Germanic Stress Shift. Standard English, at least in its spoken variants, has a lot of exceptions to initial Germanic stress, largely in loan words like those. I tend to regard this irregularity of stress pattern as one of the features that spoken Standard English maintains as a marker of mastery, a set of shibboleths waiting to betray the unwary and unsure non-Standard speaker trying sound Standard. It's all part of how the ideology of Standard English, as Rosina Lippi-Green calls it, maintains its control and exclusiveness.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Marshall Myers
Sent: Thu 7/6/2006 1:44 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: FW: schwa
Stahlke, Herbert F.W. wrote:
>Bruce,
>
>You're right about that, and when Andy Capp says, "Er", he's actually pronouncing a mid central vowel with no rhotacization. Another effect of the <r> in British Spelling is in the name of AA Milne's donkey, in Pooh, Eeyore, pronounce eeyaw, naturally. American speakers usually miss the humor on that one.
>
>Herb
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Bruce Despain
>Sent: Thu 7/6/2006 8:52 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: FW: schwa
>
>Johanna,
>
>It may be relevant to note as well that the schwa is often phonetically spelled
>as 'er', I surmise at least by British writers who do not pronounce the 'r'.
>
>Bruce
>
>
>
>>>>"Stahlke, Herbert F.W." <[log in to unmask]> 07/05/06 8:24 PM >>>
>>>>
>>>>
>
>Here's another helpful posting from Johanna. Her point about the difficult of
>pronouncing schwa in isolation illustrates that fact that in English schwa
>occurs only in unstressed syllables, and phonetically untrained English speakers
>can't pronounce unstressed syllables by themselves without stressing them, which
>will change the vowel sound.
>
>Herb
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Johanna Rubba [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: Wed 7/5/2006 4:42 PM
>To: Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
>Cc: Johanna Rubba
>Subject: Re: schwa
>
>Herb,
>
>I hope you'll post this little addendum to the schwa thread.
>
>-----
>Herb's concentric-circle image is nice. It's important to note one
>other thing: though schwa is often phonetically spelled as 'uh', it is
>not the same vowel sound heard in 'but', 'fun', or 'son'. The vowel in
>these words is very close to schwa, but it is lower (therefore the
>mouth is just a trifle more open). When people break a word up into
>syllables and pronounce each separately, they will stress the normally
>unstressed vowels, which will often come out as 'uh'. This happens to
>my students all the time when they are transcribing words into phonetic
>symbols, and they always ask me about the difference between the two.
>They will pronounce 'about', for instance, as two separate syllables --
>'uh' and 'bout'. As soon as that first syllable is pronounced alone, it
>receives stress and the vowel changes away from schwa.
>
>Many linguistics book use the same phonetic symbol -- an 'e' rotated
>180 degrees -- for both of these vowels. Properly, the rotated 'e' is
>for schwa, and the other vowel is represented by a symbol called caret
>-- an upside-down lower-case v.
>
>Some readers may also be a little confused about the relevance of
>tense/lax to schwa. Both tense and lax vowels are subject to
>replacement by schwa in unstressed syllabes: the tense 'ee' sound of
>the 'e' in 'reduce' is normally pronounced as schwa, as is the first
>tense /o/ of 'photography'; the tense /u/ of 'tonight', etc.
>
>I might also note that the differences among schwas that Herb describes
>below can also happen to stressed vowels: nearby sounds affect the
>pronunciation of a vowel, because of the need for rapid muscle movement
>noted in my first message. Phonics teaches about 'r-colored' vowels,
>because the /r/ sound affects the vowel pronunciation in more
>noticeable ways than other consonants. /l/ can also have a profound
>effect on a preceding vowel. If a vowel precedes a nasal consonant such
>as /m/, /n/, or the sound we spell '-ng', it will also be nasal -- that
>is, the passage to the nasal cavity will open early and produce a nasal
>vowel. This passage is closed when a nasal sound is not in a word. If
>you're good at stretching out words without distorting them, try saying
>'back' and 'bank' with very elongated vowels. You might be able to hear
>the difference. French has nasal vowel phonemes, hence the difference
>in pronunciation between 'seau' ('bucket') and 'son' ('sound'). The -n-
>of 'son' is not pronounced.
>
>
>On Jul 5, 2006, at 9:11 AM, Stahlke, Herbert F.W. wrote:
>
>Thanks to Johanna for that excellent review of schwa, and to DD for
>forwarding it. I would add only that schwa in English is functionally
>different, in ways that Johanna explains, from schwa in other languages
>where it may well be a separate phoneme. This results in part from the
>major tense/lax contrast in English vowels. The vowel sounds in pea,
>pay, pod (US), pawed, Po, and pool are tense vowels. The vowel sounds
>in pit, pet, pat, putt, and put are lax (Midwestern pronunciation, both
>Lower and Upper North, but not Northern Cities Vowel Shift areas).
>What tense and lax mean physically is that tense vowels are articulated
>with the tongue in more extreme positions, farther from the central,
>rest position, essentially the position for schwa. It takes more
>muscular effort, tension, and time to pronounce these vowels, which is
>why they are longer temporally. Lax vowels aren't as far out from
>schwa physically, so they don't require as much muscular effor. Schwa,
>for English, represents essentially the resting space in the middle of
>the vowel space, and so we can think of the three kinds of vowel
>roughly as three concentric circles, a bit of radical normalization but
>a good image. Tense vowels are the outer circle, lax the inner, and
>schwa the innermost. This implies that schwa is not a single vowel
>sound but a range of sounds varying from the vowel of "just" as in "I
>just left" to the initial vowel of "above", to the slightly rounded
>vowel of "equal". As Johanna notes, this is a function of the dynamics
>of tongue movement as it's going from one vowel or consonant position
>to another.
>
>Herb
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of DD Farms
>Sent: Wed 7/5/2006 9:25 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: schwa
>
>DD: An extremely interesting note from Dr. Rubba, which I was asked
>to forward. I really didn't have any idea that simple schwa could be
>so complex. But from whence comes that schwa that so many southern
>words seem to end in? No vowel there as spelled, but as pronounced.
>Or is it just that I talk funny?
>
>At 07:55 PM 7/4/2006, Johanna Rubba wrote:
>
>
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I am still having trouble posting messages. If this doesn't go to
>>the list, could you post it for me?
>>
>>Here is the dope on schwa, from a Ph.D. linguist who has studied a
>>great deal of phonetics and phonology:
>>
>>Schwa is a mid-central vowel. This means the tongue position for the
>>vowel is pretty much dead center in what we call the 'vowel space'
>>-- the area in the mouth in which vowels are made by placing the
>>tongue high or low and pulling it forward or retracting it.
>>
>>Schwa isn't a phoneme of English; it is what we call an allophone.
>>An allophone is a particular way of pronouncing a phoneme (phonemes
>>are the sounds that we use to build words). We speak very rapidly --
>>at the rate of several phonemes per second. At the same time, the
>>movements we have to make with our tongues, vocal cords, and other
>>vocal-tract parts have to be precise enough to differentiate the
>>sounds we speak. In every language, a tradeoff is made between speed
>>and precise articulation of a phoneme, resulting in changes in how
>>the phoneme is pronounced. Sometimes a small change is made in the
>>phoneme; sometimes we get a whole different sound; sometimes the
>>phoneme is left out altogether.
>>
>>The appearance of schwa depends on which syllables in the word are
>>accented -- emphasized more than the others (linguists call this
>>feature STRESS). English is a rhythmic language; the preferred
>>arrangement of syllables is in stressed-unstresssed pairs, as in
>>(stressed syllables are in CAPS) PHO-to-GRA-phic ('photographic').
>>
>>Schwa appears in syllables which have no stress at all. Any vowel
>>(except the diphthongs, the vowels in 'bite', 'bout', and 'Boyd')
>>will be pronounced as schwa if it appears in an unstressed syllable.
>>Hence the difference in the pair
>>
>>1 - PHO-to-GRAPH 'photograph'
>>
>>2 - pho-TO-gra-PHY 'photography'
>>
>>(English has two degrees of stress; the main stress -- on PHO- and
>>TO- in these examples -- and secondary stress, on GRAPH and PHY).
>>
>>Notice how PHO is pronounced with an /o/ in #1, but with a schwa
>>(somewhat like 'puh') in #2. Similarly, -TO- is pronounced something
>>like 'tuh' in #1, but as TAH in #2. Notice that the stress is
>>reversed in the pair: in #1, 'pho-' has the main stress and '-to-'
>>has no stress. In #2, the exact opposite holds: 'pho-' has no
>>stress, and '-to-' has the main stress.
>>
>>This holds for normal-speed speech. When we slow down or have to
>>speak unusually carefully (as in a noisy environment), we will
>>pronounce the full vowel.
>>
>>These rapid-speech changes happen to every sound we say. A
>>noticeable one is the various ways /t/ is pronounced: with a strong
>>puff of air in 'toe'; as a d-like sound (but it is not /d/) in
>>'water'; as a break in the breath stream (a glottal stop) in
>>'button' or 'kitten'; without the puff of air, as in 'store'. This
>>last causes /t/ and /d/ to sound the same, resulting in spelling
>>errors such as 'distain' for 'disdain' and 'next store' for 'next
>>door'. /t/ may also be omitted altogether when it is between an /n/
>>and a vowel or '-er': 'twenty' may be pronounced 'twenny' and
>>'hunter' as 'hunner'.
>>
>>NOTE: These changes are not sloppy or incorrect speech, whatever you
>>may have been told by your singing teacher or anyone else. They are
>>necessary compromises between speed and precision articulation.
>>Every language has a large number of such changes; learning them is
>>necessary to acquiring a native accent in a language one is learning
>>(a common component of a foreign accent in learners of English is
>>the failure to change vowels to schwa).
>>
>>Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
>>Linguistics Minor Advisor
>>English Department
>>California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
>>E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>>Tel.: 805.756.2184
>>Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
>>Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
>>URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>>
>>
>
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>Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
>Linguistics Minor Advisor
>English Department
>California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
>E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>Tel.: 805.756.2184
>Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
>Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
>URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>
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All,
Some interesting things happen with the schwa in Appalachian speech.
Typically, and I believe this is the observation of Karl Verner, the
Germantic languages tend to put the stress on the initial syllable.
Compare the French pronunciation of "difference" to the English, for
example.
In Appalachian English, place names of two syllables stress the first
syllable especially, and the second syllable ends up with a certain
variety of a schwa in it. So Midwesterners would pronounce "Paintsville"
as: Paints-ville, where Appalachian speakers would stress the first
syllable and say Paints-vull, Russell-vull for Russellville, and, of
course, a very interesting one: Pak-vull for Pikesville.
I've heard it in other dialects, particularly in other parts of the
South, but Appalachian English is the dialect I hear here everyday.
Perhaps, you've heard natives pronounce the largest city in Kentucky as
they do?
Marshall
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