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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