Weak vowel merger The
weak vowel merger is the loss of contrast between (
schwa) and unstressed , which occurs in certain dialects of English: notably many Southern Hemisphere, North American, Irish, and 21st-century (but not older) standard Southern British accents. In speakers with this merger, the words
abbot and
rabbit rhyme, and
Lennon and
Lenin are pronounced identically, as are
addition and
edition. However, it is possible among these merged speakers (such as
General American) that a distinction is still maintained in certain contexts, such as in the pronunciation of ''Rosa's
versus roses
, because of the morpheme break in Rosa's
. (Speakers without the merger generally have in the final syllables of rabbit
, Lenin
, roses
and the first syllable of edition
that is distinct from the schwa heard in the corresponding syllables of abbot
, Lennon
, Rosa's
and addition
.) If an accent with the merger is also non-rhotic, then for example chatted
and chattered
will be homophones, as will arches
and archers
. The merger also affects the weak forms of some words and causes unstressed it
, for instance, to be pronounced with a schwa, so that dig it
would rhyme with bigot''. The merger is very common in
Southern Hemisphere accents. Most speakers of
Australian English (as well as recent Southern England English) replace weak with schwa, but in
-ing, the pronunciation is frequently . If there is a following , as in
paddck or
nomadc, some speakers maintain the contrast, but some who have the merger use as the merged vowel. In
New Zealand English, the merger is complete, and indeed, is very centralized even in stressed syllables and so it is usually regarded as the same phoneme as although in
-ing, it is closer to [i]. In
South African English, most speakers have the merger, but in more conservative accents, the contrast may be retained (as vs. . Also, a
kit split exists: see above. The merger is also commonly found in
American and
Canadian English, but the realisation of the merged vowel varies according to syllable type, with appearing in word-final or open-syllable word-initial positions (such as
dram or
clantro), but often appearing in other positions (
abbt and
xhaust). In traditional
Southern American English, the merger is generally not present, and is also heard in some words that have schwa in
RP, such as
salad. The lack of the merger is also a traditional feature of
New England English. In
Caribbean English, schwa is often not used at all, and unreduced vowels are preferred, but if there is a schwa, remains distinct from it. In traditional RP, the contrast between and weak is maintained, but that may be declining among modern standard speakers of southern England, who increasingly prefer a merger, specifically with the realisation . In RP, the phone , apart from being a frequent allophone of (as in
foot ) in younger speakers, appears only as an allophone of , which is often centralized when it occurs as a weak vowel, and never as an allophone of . Therefore, can stand for only "Lenin", not "Lennon", which has a lower vowel: . However, speakers may not always clearly perceive that difference, as is sometimes raised to in contact with alveolar consonants (such as the alveolar nasals in "Lennon" ). Furthermore, never participates in syllabic consonant formation and so G-dropping in words such as
fishing never yields a syllabic nasal * or a sounded mid schwa *, with the most casual RP forms being . Both and especially were considered to be strongly non-standard in England as late as 1982. They are characteristic of
Cockney, which otherwise does not feature the weak vowel merger, but can be centralized to as in RP and so and are distinct possibilities in Cockney. In other accents of the
British Isles, the contrast between and weak may be variable. In
Irish English, the merger is almost universal. The merger is not complete in
Scottish English, whose speakers typically distinguish
except from
accept, but the latter can be phonemicized with an unstressed : (as can the word-final schwa in
comma ) and the former with : . In other environments, and are mostly merged to a quality around , often even when stressed (Wells transcribes the merged vowel with . There, is used for the sake of consistency and accuracy) and when before , as in
fir and
letter (but not
fern and
fur : see
nurse mergers). The vowel is : . Even in accents that do not have the merger, there may be certain words in which traditional is replaced by by many speakers (both sounds may then be considered to be in
free variation). In RP, is now often heard in place of in endings such as
-ace (as in
palace);
-ate (as in
senate);
-less,
-let, for the in
-ily;
-ity,
-ible; and in initial weak
be-,
de-,
re-, and
e-. Final , and also and , are commonly realized as
syllabic consonants, especially when follows a pair of a vowel and a certain digraph (e.g. , , or ), or that of a diphthong or another vowel and or (e.g. , ). In accents without the merger, the use of , rather than , prevents the formation of syllabic consonants. Hence in RP, for example, the second syllable of
Barton is pronounced as a syllabic , but that of
Martin is . Many non-rhotic speakers also pronounce
pattern with , which is accordingly homophonous with
Patton. Particularly in American linguistic tradition, the unmerged weak -type vowel is often transcribed with the barred
i , the
IPA symbol for the
close central unrounded vowel. Another symbol sometimes used is , the non-IPA symbol for a
near-close central unrounded vowel. In the third edition of the
OED, that symbol is used in the transcription of words (of the types listed above) that have free variation between and in RP.
KIT–commA merger A phonemic merger between (the vowel ) and word-internal comm (the vowel in gallop, distinct from word-final and sometimes also word-initial comm which can be analysed as : see above). The merger occurs in some
Inland Northern American English (the areas in which the final stage of the
Northern Cities Vowel Shift has been completed),
New Zealand English, and also partially in
South African English (specifically when not adjacent to a velar consonant; see
kit–bit split). In New Zealand English (which is non-rhotic), the merger also encompasses the lett lexical set, so
villagers,
lid, and
balance all share the same vowel. This merger not to be confused with the
weak vowel merger, which only merges unstressed rather than as a whole. The merger is present in dialects where the quality of is far removed from (the word-final allophone of ), such as Inland Northern American English, but can be a misleading name in the case of other accents.
Happy tensing '''
Happy tensing'
is a process whereby a final unstressed i
-type vowel becomes tense rather than lax , today found in most dialects of English worldwide. That affects the final vowels of words such as happy
, city
, hurry
, taxi
, movie
, Charlie
, coffee
, money
and Chelsea
. It may also apply in inflected forms of such words containing an additional final consonant sound, such as cities
, Charlie's
and hurried
. It can also affect words such as me
, he
and she
when they are used as clitics, as in show me
, would he?'' Until the 17th century, words in the happ
lexical set could either end with the vowel of the lexical set (originally , but diphthongized to etc. in the
Great Vowel Shift) or a short sound (some accents still exhibit alternation between that vowel and the happ vowel in words such as
Sunday and
Monday). It is not entirely clear when the vowel underwent the transition. The fact that tensing is uniformly present in
South African English,
Australian English and
New Zealand English lends support to the idea that it may have already been present in southern British English already in the early 19th century. However, it is not mentioned by
descriptive phoneticians until the early 20th century and even then at first only in
American English. The British phonetician
Jack Windsor Lewis believed that the vowel moved from to in Britain in the second quarter of the 19th century before it reverted to in non-conservative British accents towards the last quarter of the 20th century. The laxer pronunciation is also found in some
Southern American English, in much of northern England and in Jamaica. In
Scottish English, an sound, similar to the Scottish realization of the vowel of
day, may be used. It is also still found among some older speakers of Conservative
RP. The tense [i] variant, however, is now established in as the norm in Modern RP and General American, and is also the usual form in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, in southern England and in some northern English regions (such as
Merseyside,
Hull, and
the entire North East). The lax and tense variants of the
happy vowel may be identified with the phonemes and respectively. They may also be considered to represent a
neutralization between the two phonemes, but for speakers with the tense variant, there is the possibility of contrast in such pairs as
taxis and
taxes (see
English phonology – vowels in unstressed syllables). and consider the tensing to be a neutralization between and . regards the tense variant in modern RP as still an allophone of on the basis that it is shorter and more resistant to diphthongization than is . regards the phenomenon to be a mere substitution of for . Most modern British dictionaries represent the
happy vowel with the symbol (distinct from both and ). That notation was first introduced in the
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1978) by its pronunciation editor, Gordon Walsh, and it was later taken up by , who extended it to representing the weak vowel found word-medially in
situation etc., and by some other dictionaries, including
John C. Wells's
Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (1990). In 2012, Wells wrote that the notation "seemed like a good idea at the time, but it clearly confuses a lot of people". criticizes the notation for causing "widespread belief in a specific 'happY vowel that "never existed". ==Additional mergers==