Stress and Vowel Reduction in English - Reduced Vowels

Reduced Vowels

Certain vowel sounds in English are associated strongly with absence of stress: they occur practically exclusively in unstressed syllables; and conversely, most (though not all) unstressed syllables contain one of these sounds. These are known as reduced vowels, and tend to be characterized by such features as shortness, laxness and central position. The exact set of reduced vowels depends on dialect and speaker; the principal ones are described in the sections below.