Alternation Between Full and Reduced Vowels
It is a feature of English that reduced vowels frequently alternate with full vowels: a given word or morpheme may be pronounced with a reduced vowel in some instances and a full vowel in other instances, usually depending on the degree of stress (lexical or prosodic) given to it.
Read more about this topic: Stress And Vowel Reduction In English
Famous quotes containing the words alternation, full, reduced and/or vowels:
“The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone for a season, that it may exalt its conversation or society.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Should ardent spirits be everywhere banished from the list of drinks, it will be a revolution not the least remarkable in this revolutionary age, and our country will have its full share in that as in other merits.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“I’ve tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I’m afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“As no one can tell what was the Roman pronunciation, each nation makes the Latin conform, for the most part, to the rules of its own language; so that with us of the vowels only A has a peculiar sound.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)