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From: rdd@usa1.com (Aaron J. Dinkin)
Subject: Re: Stressed schwa
Message-ID: <rdd-0108960929350001@dmn1-37.usa1.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Aug 1996 09:29:35 -0500
References: <4tjfe5$3be@news4.digex.net> <4tlflg$7v7@agate.berkeley.edu> <31fe95d9.149747520@nntp.ix.netcom.com> <3200FA17.6E2B@mq.edu.au> <320049EA.52DF@pacific.net.sg>
Lines: 19

In article <320049EA.52DF@pacific.net.sg>, "Chris G. Perrott"
<cperrott@pacific.net.sg> wrote:

> David Blair wrote:
> > ....
> >  In fact,
> > we would +define+ schwa as an unstressed vowel, and it can be treated as
> > the unstressed allophone of several vowel phonemes.
> 
> This means the vowel in 'book' or 'good' or 'put' is not a schwa?

Quite. In most dialects it's /U/. (However, I've been investigating my own
dialect recently, and I've discovered that most, if not all, words with
/U/ don't sound wrong when pronounced with /@/. This is especially obvious
when preceding /r/: I very frequently pronounce, say, "pure" [pjR] rather
than [pjUr].)

-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom

