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Is there a word in RP (Received Pronunciation) where the stressed vowel sound is a schwa?

tchrist
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8 Answers8

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The word schwa can mean two things:

In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (sometimes spelled shwa) can mean the following:

  • An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel. Such vowels are often transcribed with the symbol <ə>, regardless of their actual phonetic value.
  • The mid-central vowel sound (rounded or unrounded) in the middle of the vowel chart, stressed or unstressed. In IPA phonetic transcription, it is written as [ə]. In this case the term mid-central vowel may be used instead of schwa to avoid ambiguity.

— From the Wikipedia article about schwa

If we go by the first definition, which is a phonological definition, then the answer is no, there are no stressed schwas in Received Pronunciation because schwa refers exclusively to unstressed sounds.

If we go by the second definition, which is a purely phonetic definition, then the answer is a resounding “maybe”. The second definition says “in IPA phonetic transcription” meaning the word schwa could refer to a vowel sound (in any language) that has the vowel quality defined as “mid-central”. Traditional phonetic descriptions of Received Pronunciation give the vowel quality of the NURSE lexical set as [ɜː], which is the IPA for an open-mid central unrounded vowel, a sound very close to but not quite the same as a mid-central vowel. However, a careful narrow transcription of some particular speaker’s production of the NURSE vowel might be given using the symbol [ə], in which case you could make the claim that this is a “stressed schwa”

Nevertheless, this is a pretty contrived scenario. The usual symbol used to transcribe the NURSE vowel is [ɜː] not [ə].

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nohat
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    The only words I can conceive of that has a stressed schwa (second sense) in English are but, the, and possibly just. Traditionally, the stressed version of but and just have been [ˈbʌt] and [ˈjʌst], but I hear more and more RP speakers stressing them as [ˈbət] and [ˈjəst], with a clearly non-differentiated schwa. The has never, to my knowledge, been stressed as [ˈðʌ] in RP—only [ˈðə] and [ˈðiː] are possible. In other words, when inherently, lexically unstressed monosyllabics receive emphatic stress, they may keep their schwa. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 27 '15 at 11:43
  • Since it's necessary to represent stress anyway in English transcription, a stressed schwa is simply a caret (which doesn't occur unstressed in American English, at least). So phonemically, schwa represents all the central vowels, since there is nothing for it to contrast with. One might exclude retroflexed vowels, or represent them as /Vr/ sequence, which would make the vowel of church /ər/. – John Lawler Jun 11 '23 at 18:20
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To quote wikipedia:

In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (sometimes spelled shwa) can mean the following:

  • An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel. Such vowels are often transcribed with the symbol <ə>, regardless of their actual phonetic value.

  • The mid-central vowel sound (rounded or unrounded) in the middle of the vowel chart, stressed or unstressed. In IPA phonetic transcription, it is written as [ə]. In this case the term mid-central vowel may be used instead of schwa to avoid ambiguity.

So it seems it has two meanings. One which by definition is unstressed. The other which can be in some languages.

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neil
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    I was wondering whether the IPA vowel /ə/ can be stressed in English words. –  May 25 '11 at 10:25
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Unlike other answers here, the answer is no. The schwa ə in English IPA transcriptions indicates an unstressed sound.

You can see the Weak and strong forms as an example. Same goes for nouns.

Father is an example, or see this Wikipedia article, where I found this list:

  • the 'a' in about [əˈbaʊt]
  • the 'e' in taken [ˈteɪkən]
  • the 'i' in pencil [ˈpɛnsəl]
  • the 'o' in eloquent [ˈɛləkwənt]
  • the 'u' in supply [səˈplaɪ]
  • the 'y' in sibyl [ˈsɪbəl]

EDIT:

Like I said under z7sg's answer, I can't understand why some dictionaries disagree.

In the past I had to train for Uni in order to recognize the different "vowel" sounds in English, I'm talking about BrE, and I found this, the British Council / BBC Phonemic Chart.

If you click on ə, you will hear a short schwa sound, but if you click on ɜ: you will clearly hear the same sound but longer, i.e. the long schwa sound. I find it quite ambiguous to render those different sounds with the same symbol.

The difference can be heard when saying "Teach[er]" and "B[ir]d".

See also this. When I used to do IPA transcriptions in my faculty, the schwa always figured in the unstressed syllables.

Adam
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Alenanno
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  • @Tim: I added some info, in case you didn't notice. – Alenanno May 25 '11 at 13:24
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    @Alenanno: IANA linguist, but as I understand, the difference between the vowels of teachER and EARth is almost entirely one of length, and vowel length is generally indicated in IPA by ː, not by a change of symbol. There’s no ambiguity in writing ə for a short schwa and əː for long one, surely? – PLL May 25 '11 at 13:31
  • @PLL: When I was learning the most common IPA symbols, I knew that unlike other symbols the Schwa is not simply "lengthened" with the usage of :, but you also change the symbol. Even the Phonemic Chart I provided proves me right, and I have other references in case that's not enough. This is what I know by studying, if you know it's the opposite, I'd like to see some references and in that case, I'll understand I'm wrong. – Alenanno May 25 '11 at 13:40
  • @PLL: By the way, yes it's a matter of length... I am not sure but I hope I didn't sound too harsh in my comments! :) I just couldn't shut up when I know it's differently, and in the end, we're here to find the true thing, so I'm also ready to be destroyed by someone who brings references for the opposite thing :D eheh – Alenanno May 25 '11 at 13:43
  • @Alenanno: What I learned was originally from a rather old IPA handbook aimed at an international audience. So perhaps my information is out of date; or else perhaps yours is a convention specific to use for English of the IPA? (cont’d) – PLL May 25 '11 at 14:06
  • According to eg the Wikipedia IPA chart (and others online), ə denotes the mid central vowel, ɜ the low-mid central. So perhaps we were both slightly wrong in asserting that length is the only difference between the teacher and earth vowels? That would be one explanation (and is the one that Wikipedia supports). Or else, perhaps, if the difference is just one of length, there could be an English-specific convention to use ə/ɜ for this distinction rather than ə/əː, since vowel length isn’t phonemic anywhere else in English? – PLL May 25 '11 at 14:09
  • No worries about sound harsh, by the way: IRL I am a mathematician, so am similarly quite pedantic about small differences, and quite concerned to get to the bottom of things :-) Plus, the Wiki-trawling I did for this has introduced me to the magnificent Estonian word jäääär! – PLL May 25 '11 at 14:11
  • @PLL: ahah I see... check the @Peter Shor comment under the other answer. :D what is "jääär" by the way? – Alenanno May 25 '11 at 16:07
  • @Alenanno IAANA linguist, but I am confused by the necessity for two symbols for the same sound, if the only difference is that one is longer. Perhaps the term schwa is problematic, if you are going to make this distinction? If we restrict schwa to the 'short' unstressed vowel sound then doubtless we could all agree it is not stressed in English. – z7sg Ѫ May 25 '11 at 16:25
  • @z7sg: Actually, now that you re-mentioned it, if you look at all the vowel sounds, or better, their IPA transcriptions, they are all different from each other. We have a short ɪ, but a long i:, a short ɒ, but a long ɔ:, a short ʊ, but a long u:. – Alenanno May 25 '11 at 16:30
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    @Alenanno But the short form of i: (ee in see) is not ɪ but i (y in city). – z7sg Ѫ May 25 '11 at 16:36
  • @z7sg: This matter is more complex than I initially thought eheh... The only thing I can think of is that we are forgetting or maybe we are not aware of some changes that occur during the Language development... – Alenanno May 25 '11 at 16:41
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    @Alenanno, @z7sg: I think @Colin Fine’s comment on the other thread pretty much nails it, actually. Between the vowels of earth and teacher, there’s a big difference of length and a slight difference of position. But since vowel length isn’t generally phonemic in English, the position disctinction (ə/ɜ) is what gets traditionally used to distinguish them. – PLL May 25 '11 at 18:00
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    In an old-fashioned Brooklyn accent, earth is pronounced with /ɜɪ/ and teacher is pronounced with /ə/. In many modern-day NYC non-rhotic accents, earth is pronounced with /ɝ/ and teacher is still pronounced with /ə/. Both historically and in many dialects, the difference between earth and teacher is not just length. I think it makes sense to use a different symbol for them, even if length is the main difference in RP. – Peter Shor May 25 '11 at 18:13
  • And hey, while we're at it, the examples in that list for E, I, possibly O, and Y are all typically articulated as syllabic consonants, not schwa followed by a consonant. I think it's simply a common (misguided) phonemic concept in English: syllabic consonants just don't exist, so there's obviously got to be a schwa there. – Jon Purdy May 25 '11 at 18:19
  • ɛ <-- is that really a schwa? an EH sound. Vocal Schwa , in hebrew grammar books anyway, is like you've shown with all your examples with ə – barlop May 25 '11 at 19:28
  • @Alenanno: I wasn't notified about your edit, but saw it now. I believe your answer is currently the most precise. I'd be enlightened if someone could some up all the wisdom in these comments, though. –  May 25 '11 at 19:33
  • @Peter Shor Why use a different symbol if length is the only difference? Do you also object to i/i: using the same symbol? – z7sg Ѫ May 25 '11 at 21:20
  • @barlop: Er... ɛ has nothing to do here, I never mentioned it... Don't confuse it with ɜ. @Tim When I get a clue, I'll improve the answer :D – Alenanno May 25 '11 at 21:32
  • @z7sg: With i/i:, I believe these two vowels are the same historically, and for most English speakers, the length is the only difference. With ə/ə:, I believe the two vowels are historically different, but have converged. I'm not even sure that these two vowels were the same in RP when the IPA was first developed. We need a linguist. – Peter Shor May 25 '11 at 21:41
  • @Peter Shor The treatment of the i/i:/I phonemes is inconsistent too, at least in wikipedia. And likewise constantly changing – z7sg Ѫ May 25 '11 at 22:05
  • @Jon regarding transcribing syllabic consonants as schwa + consonant, I don't think it's a “misguided phonemic concept” per se, rather it is the assertion that syllabic consonants are just the phonetic realization of what is phonologically schwa + those consonants. – nohat May 26 '11 at 04:56
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    @Peter the IPA symbols are defined independently of their use in transcribing any particular language. – nohat May 26 '11 at 04:56
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    @nohat: That is essentially what I mean. A phonetic transcription shows what people actually say, from an outside perspective, whereas a phonemic transcription shows only what people think they're saying, or how they conceptualise it, which is only useful from an in-language standpoint. Dictionaries can use phonemic transcription all they want, but we're talking about phonetics at the moment. – Jon Purdy May 26 '11 at 05:43
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No. Schwa is never stressed in any English word.

The human voice is capable of stressing it of course and schwa is indeed stressed in other languages including Romanian.

hippietrail
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  • The ə/uh in [səˈplaɪ] supply. that also occurs in some pronunciations of Pencil. pen sul. Is that not a vocal schwa, occurring in English? I know hebrew has vocal schwa, that is like that. – barlop May 25 '11 at 19:26
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    @barlop: That syllable isn't stressed, though. Unless you're talking about the adverb of supple, in which case it's an /ʌ/. –  May 25 '11 at 19:41
  • good point, it's not stressed in supply.. hmm, I was thinking Burn or Dirt but I see dictionary.cambridge(british pronunciation) /bɜːn/ or /bûrn/ american pronunciation. no upside down e at all so I suppose it's not even a schwa? – barlop May 25 '11 at 20:22
  • @barlop: Hebrew schwa/sheva is quite different than English schwa. It has both silent and pronounced versions. But I don't know much more as my Hebrew never advanced very far (-: – hippietrail May 25 '11 at 20:48
  • @hippietrail the silent one hebrew has does nothing probably isn't even a sound, it might just be a mark to symbolise no sound to help prevent a scribe from accidentally putting one in. But the vocal schwa in hebrew has a few pronunications some use one, some use another, a common one is ə the same as schwa in English. It could be that in hebrew it doesn't have stress either or rarely does. – barlop May 25 '11 at 21:15
  • @barlop: Off Topic but... the Hebrew sheva is not just the mark but a key concept in Hebrew grammar that ties deeply with syllabics and word-formation and seemed to come up everywhere when I was into Hebrew grammar. If we had a Hebrew Language & Usage site it would be a bottomless source of questions. The Wikipedia gets complicated really quickly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shva – hippietrail May 27 '11 at 02:07
  • @hippietrail Nothing is just a mark. I'm not denying the grammatical aspect, there are grammatical rules to determine whether it's vocal or silent. The silent one doesn't do anything. A teacher in conversation asked the question of what its purpose is, and suggested that maybe it's to help prevent the scribe accidentally putting a different mark in there. (e.g. one wouldn't want a little dot finding its way there 'cos that would be a vowel). – barlop May 27 '11 at 07:40
  • @hippietrail I don't think it's like other or most other vowel marks where people had to memorize them. If you rubbed them all out, the simple one (i'm not sure about rubbing the : part of compound ones out!), but if you rubbed simple ones out then you'd be in the same position. 'cos the simple ones just sit under consonants with no other vowel(apart from, if I recall, gutteral consonants that don't take one). The symbol itself tells us nothing about how to pronounce it. It's obvious when it should be there. And Grammatical rules tell us how to pronounce it i.e. whether vocal or silent. – barlop May 27 '11 at 07:58
  • in hebrew the silent shwa is at the end of a syllable and the vocal one is at the start of a syllable. The silent one is like the de"B"ra. or de"N"tal. The vocal one is like "B"anana – barlop Aug 14 '16 at 12:51
  • Unreferenced answers may come across as pure opinion. And when they are contradicted by references in other answers.... – Edwin Ashworth Nov 25 '19 at 11:24
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Yes, stressed schwa seems to occur in some British dialects.

Stressed schwa occurs in other languages. Here's an excellent excerpt from Wells 2014:

enter image description here

Oostendorp 2000 astutely observes that schwa "avoids stressed positions" [emphasis mine - Alex B.].

Alex B.
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  • I would take issue with this (rather than say out-and-out "It's wrong). My southern-England English certainly doesn't pronounce 'cause the same as a stressed (be)cause; the adverb just the same when it's stressed as unstressed; or the two syllables of gonna the same. There is a qualitative difference. – Andrew Leach Oct 01 '16 at 18:31
  • @Andrew: I actually always pronounce just (the adverb) with a schwa, even when it's stressed, so it differs from just (the adjective). But I believe that's an idiosyncrasy, and not typical in American speech. Wells's quote is probably just saying that some British speakers do the same thing. – Peter Shor Oct 01 '16 at 20:36
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What about word because? Especially it's weak form. According to Collin's, Cambridge, Oxford dictionary it's /bɪˈkəz/.

user98893
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    You cannot — by definition — have a stressed schwa. The OED has /bɪˈkɔːz/ or /bɪˈkɒz/ there, and those with the cot–caught merge get /bɪˈkʌz/ with /bəˈkʌz/ in fast speech due to reduction. Yes, those can all reduce to schwa when unstressed, but when stressed, they get different identities. And the second syllable, being stressed, howsoever you should fold, spindle, or mutilate it, you cannot get to a schwa. Only when in very fast speech where the entire word loses stress (and most of its first syllable) can /b(ə)kəz/ occur. So it can occur in fast, connected speech but not otherwise. – tchrist Nov 24 '14 at 13:55
  • I’ve looked into this a bit more carefully, and I discover that with Oxford Dictionaries Online, their IPA for UK English is /bɪˈkɒz/, which agrees with the OED (well, in part) and is to be expected. The /bēˈkəz/ you find there under the American English entry for that word is *not* written in actual IPA, as its first vowel reveals. It uses some misleading faux-pronunciation respelling system, and therefore its schwa isn’t a real one. – tchrist Nov 24 '14 at 14:10
  • The weak form of because has *no* stressed syllables: it should be written in IPA as /bɪkəz/. In sentences where the syllable following because is stressed, /bɪkəz/ is perfectly normal in speech. But it's not a schwa in a stressed syllable. Similarly, the weak forms of just and but have schwas, but they're not stressed syllables (despite the fact that they are single-syllable words). – Peter Shor Nov 24 '14 at 15:16
  • Thanks a lot guys. When it comes to words like 'just', 'but', 'that' and so one, I understand it. But I was astonished with 'because', especially that in Collins and Cambridge dictionaries the stress is marked. – user98893 Nov 26 '14 at 23:59
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For me, the first vowel in "children" is pretty damn close to a stressed schwa. Dictionaries tend to list it as a short i, to which I say, maybe in your dialect. But I think it's probably unique.

Adrian Smith
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Of course it can appear in the stressed syllable. It always occurs in the mono-syllabic articles 'the'and 'a' (except in certain syntactic exceptions like 'the elephant').

Philip Ball
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    But these are not stressed. – Rosie F Nov 25 '19 at 10:52
  • But what do you mean by 'these'? The articles may not take the nuclear stress in a longer utterance, but as the syllabic vowel they are stressed. Stress is represented by a syllable, and a syllable must, by definition, contain a vowel. So the schwa is indeed 'stressed' – Philip Ball Nov 25 '19 at 11:19