Reduction in English

Reduction is a historical process of weakening, shortening or disappearance of vowel sounds in unstressed positions.

The neutral sound represents the reduced form of almost any vowel or diphthong in the unstressed position, eg: ‘project — pro’ject. The sounds [l] and also [u] in the suffix -ful are very frequent realizations of the unstressed positions, eg beautiful.

Non-reduced unstressed sounds are often retained in:

(a) compound words, eg blackboard,

(b) borrowings from the French and other languages, eg kolkhoz

Reduction is closely connected not only with word stress but also with rhythm and sentence stress. Stressed words are pronounced with great energy of breath.

So reduction is realized:

(a) in unstressed syllables within words, eg de’monstrative;

(b) in unstressed form-words, auxiliary and modal verbs, personal and possessive pronouns within intonation groups and phrases.

Three different types of reduction are noticed in English.

1. Quantitative reduction - shortening of a vowel sound in the unstressed position, affects mainly long vowels, eg he [hi:— hi). When does he ‘come?

2. Qualitative reduction - obscuration (затемнение) of vowels towards [э, i, u], affects both long and short vowels, eg can [с96n-cэn]. You can ‘easily do it.

Vowels in unstressed form-words in most cases undergo both quantitative and qualitative reduction

3. Elision of vowels in the unstressed position, eg I'm up ‘already. Elision is normally unintentional, but it may be deliberate.

Recommendations.

1. Reduced vowels should be made very weak. Sometimes they are even dropped in fluent speech, eg factory.

2. Unknown words esp. compound and borrowed should be looked up in a dictionary to check their pronunciation.

3. Weaken unstressed form-words, personal and possessive pronouns, auxiliary and modal verbs whenever it is necessary.