Both /ʌ/ and /ə/ share the same coordinating point, the middle center of the mouth. They differ in stress. /ʌ/ is used for a stressed syllable, and /ə/ is used for unstressed syllables.
/ʌ/ words
Some common words with /ʌ/ include the following:
with “u”:
bun, bus, but, butter, cut, fun, gun, luck, lunch, run, summer, sun, Sunday, thunder, truck, tunnel, under, up, us
with “o”:
Monday, money, monk, monkey, month, honey, London, onion, son, wonder, wonderful, cover, covet, discover, dove (bird), glove, love,oven, shovel
with “ou”
country, couple, cousin, double, southern, touch, trouble, young
with “oo”:
blood, flood
with “ough”:
rough, enough, tough
/ʌ/ homophones
These are homophones:
none - nun
one - won
some - sum
son - sun
/æ/, /ʌ/ minimal pairs
ankle uncle
ban bun
bank bunk
batter butter
cab cub
cap cup
cat cut
dam dumb
drank drunk
hat hut
lack luck
paddle puddle
rag rug
ran run
sack suck
sank sunk
snag snug
stack stuck
track truck
tramp trump
Schwa for de-emphasis
/ʌ/ and /ə/ are middle center vowels, but their use is entirely different. /ʌ/ is used for a stressed sound, but /ə/, called schwa, is used for an unstressed sound. Schwa is created by the absence of any movement in the mouth. The tongue is relaxed. In other words, schwa is pronounced in the center middle of the mouth, where the pronunciation is the most economical. This explains why schwa is the most common sound in American English. In general, a vowel sound that is unstressed can be called schwa. Naturally, schwa does not have precise articulation. So, schwa can sound different since its actual pronunciation depends on the neighboring sound. For example, in “Rosa’s” vs “roses”, the ‘a’ in ‘Rosa's’ is an unstressed /ʌ/, but the ‘e’ in ‘roses’ is an unstressed /ɪ/. Despite this difference in auditory quality, both are viewed as the /ə/ sound.
How is it possible for a sound that has no clear manner of articulation to be the most common sound in English? To understand the use of schwa, we need to know that English is a stress-timed language, meaning that stressed sounds (or syllables) come in a regular interval. Stressed syllables are pronounced with emphasis. The sounds are loud, high pitched and often long. Also, its vowels have clear articulation. To make this emphasis even more salient, unstressed sounds are deemphasized and reduced. That is, unstressed sounds are spoken quietly, in a low-pitch, and fast. More importantly, the vowels of unstressed sounds generally become schwa. For example, consider the word ‘banana,’ which has a stress in the second syllable. The vowel of the second syllable is clearly articulated with /æ/. But the vowels or the first and the last syllables are reduced to schwa, resulting in the following pronunciation of the word: /bəˈnænə/.
Since syllables with schwa are pronounced fast and in low-pitch, they can be hard to hear for non-native speakers. In fact, natives use the schwa sound to signal to the listener that the words with schwa are not the main point of the speech. There are two cases that require schwa: unstressed syllables in multisyllabic words, and the normal use of function words (that is, they are not used for emphasis or contrast).
Multi-syllabic words
When a word has more than one syllable, not every syllable is given an equal emphasis when spoken. Only one syllable is stressed, and the rest are generally unstressed. The vowel sounds in unstressed syllables are usually reduced to schwa. Schwa allows unstressed syllables to occur more quickly in order to emphasize the sound of the stressed syllables. Schwa can happen with any vowel letters:
the a in about, again, vitamin
the e in synthesis, electric, celebrate
the i in decimal, president, experiment
the o in harmony, occur, condition
the u in medium, umbrella, support
the y in syringe.
The schwa sound can be found in any position in a word:
in the beginning of a word as in about, ago, amazing
in the middle of a word as in elephant, gallon
in the end of a word as in idea
Function words
The purpose of schwa is to reduce sound. This allows unstressed syllables to be said quickly so that the main beats of the speech can be placed on the stressed syllables. In speech, function words are usually reduced. Function words are words that indicate grammatical aspects, like tense or mood. Function words include auxiliary verbs, pronouns, articles, conjunctions and prepositions. In normal speech situations, we should reduce function words to keep the stress pattern regular. These are speech segments that require schwa.
a, an, the
a chair, an apple, the table
am, are, is, was
am i?, how are you?, who is he?, I was singing
and, but
chicken and chips, it’s hard but I like it
than, or
I like it more than you do, coffee or tea
that, to
I told you that he was good, I’d like to see you
can, could
I can do it, I could do it
will, would, should
will it rain?, would you mind?, it should rain
in, on, of
It’s in the closet, it’s on the table, get out of here
for, with
I’m looking for a room, Come with me
have, has, had
I have a question, he has a problem, she had a pet
as, if
As soon as possible, I’ll go if you do
/ər/ words
/ər/ can occur in a stressed and in an unstressed syllable. For example, in butter and father, it is unstressed, but in stir, occur and prefer, /ər/ is stressed:. To distinguish these two cases, some scholars use different symbols: e.g., /ɜr, ɝ/ for the stressed ER sound, and /ər, ɚ/ for the unstressed ER sound. In this book, we use the same symbol /ər/ since their pronunciation is the same.
Another thing to mention regarding /ər/ is that /ər/ is essentially the same sound as the vocalic /r/ (i.e., the /r/ that carries its own vowel sound). This led some to claim that /ər/ is the syllabic consonant /r/ sound. In this book, we treat /ər/ as the composite of /ə/ plus /r/. Some common words containing /ər/ include the following:
with "er":
certain, concern, determine, her, nerve, perfect, person, service, term, verb, were
with "ear":
early, earn, earth, heard, learn, pearl, search
with "ur":
burn, curly, fur, hurt, murder, return, surface, surgeon, Thursday, turn, urban, urgent
with "ir":
bird, birthday, circle, dirty, firm, girl, shirt, sir, skirt, stir, third, thirsty, thirty
with "or":
attorney, word, work, worm, world, worse, worst, worth
with "our":
courteous, journalist, journey
colonel (The word “colonel” also has the r-colored vowel /ər/ as it is pronounced /ˈk/ər/nl/)
/ər/ homophones
These words are homophones:
birth - berth
colonel - kernel
earn - urn
fir - fur
heard - herd
tern - turn
/ʌ/, /ər/ minimal pairs
These are minimal pairs of /ʌ/ and /ər/.
bud, bird
bun, burn
fussed, first
shut, shirt
cub, curb
ton, turn
thud, third
such, search
tough, turf
hull, hurl
gull, girl
stun, stern
tum, term
tuck,Turk
hut, hurt
suffer, surfer
puck, perk
blood, blurred
cull, curl
bust, burst
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