# English: The rhotic /ɝ/-/ɚ/ and non-rhotic /ɜː/-/ə/ contrasts



## guillaumedemanzac

*Moderator note: split from quoted thread.*



Dan2 said:


> guillaume: several good points in your post directly above.  Just wanted to comment on...
> That is usually the case but not always: consider noun vs verb forms of "pervert".  Certainly in American English the vowel qualities are the same in noun and verb even while the stress shifts.



In British, PERvert is the person - That nasty little PERvert! - and perVERT is the verb -- He perVERTed the course of justice. - so the rule applies.

American English is often a perVERsion of Shakespeare's PERfect language so you should perFECT your tongue to make your pronunciation PERfect.     (just a little dig at the cousins outre-atlantique!!!)

*- couldn't resist that!!!! but sorry anyway!!*


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## Dan2

Might you have missed my point, guillaume?


Dan2 said:


> consider noun vs verb forms of "pervert". Certainly in American English the vowel qualities are the same in noun and verb *even while the stress shifts*.


You cited words like "object" and "present", where in going from verb stress to noun stress there's an accompanying change in vowel quality.  But in "pervert" the vowels retain the same phonemes.  Using the symbol 'R' for the American syllabic /r/ and putting a single quote before the stressed syllable, we have
verb: pR'vRt
noun: 'pRvRt
So the verb and noun forms of "pervert" display a more or less pure example of stress distinction only.

----
It's arguable whether on balance modern American English or modern British English is closer to the language of Shakespeare.


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## broglet

Dan2 said:


> consider noun vs verb forms of "pervert". Certainly in American English the vowel qualities are the same in noun and verb ...


 Is this really so?  I find it almost inconceivable.


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## berndf

broglet said:


> Is this really so?  I find it almost inconceivable.


Dan argues that /ɝ/ and /ɚ/ only differ in weight (full vs. reduced vowel) but share the same quality (which is probably true). This does not necessarily mean that there is no phonemically relevant difference between the two.


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## Dan2

broglet said:


> I find it almost inconceivable.


There are British pronunciations I find almost inconceivable...
Seriously though, I don't understand your skepticism/scepticism.  The corresponding standard British English vowels in the "pervert" words, [ɜ] and [ə], are really quite similar to each other.  Some people consider them stressed and unstressed versions of the same vowel.


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## guillaumedemanzac

Broglet  ...........      however it's a British point of view - Americans change stress emphasis (syllable) all the time - but I agree PERvr't and p'rVERT are totally different in British.
The stress allows you to disambiguate when the spelling is the same but the grammatical use is different so it is a very useful tool.    The neutral vowel is very important in speech to keep the rhythm of the sentences/phrases.


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> The corresponding standard British English vowels in the "pervert" words, [ɜ] and [ə]...


[ɜ:] and [ə] to be precise -- I don't think [ɜ] is a BrE vowel. I assume by [ɜ] you meant "the quality of [ɜ:]". -- I just wanted to clarify this to avoid possible misunderstandings.


Dan2 said:


> ..., are really quite similar to each other. Some people consider them stressed and unstressed versions of the same vowel.


Yes, the difference is length and stress. The main reason why different symbols are used is because the perceptual difference is so big. Jones 1956, btw, transcribed the two vowels /ə:/ and /ə/ and not /ɜ:/ and [ə] as it is customary today.

As to the American side, Webster, e.g., transcribes /ɝ/ and /ɚ/ identically, both as /ər/. As a matter of principle, Webster does not encode length information, which is probably appropriate for GA.


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## Dan2

guillaumedemanzac said:


> however it's a British point of view - Americans change stress emphasis (syllable) all the time


It seems to me you're still missing the point.  With regard to everything under discussion here, there is no difference in which syllable is stressed between American and British English .

Once again, we all agree that the verb is perVERT and the noun is PERvert (using upper case to indicate stress).  The discussion is only about the quality of the four vowels that are spelled "er" in these two words.


guillaumedemanzac said:


> Americans *change *stress emphasis (syllable) all the time


No, one observes _differences _between British and American stress all the time.  It was not in America that "garage" came to be stressed on the first syllable, to give just one example.


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## Nino83

In British English there are at least three different sounds for stressed and unstressed /er/ (the phonetic trascription is based on Southeast British English).
stressed [ɜː], unstressed (pretonic) [ə] and word-final (before a pause) [ɐ].
_adv*er*tis*er*_ ['ædv*ə*tɑɪz*ɐ*] 
_s*ea*rch*er*_ ['s*ɜː*ʧ*ɐ*]
While in American English /er/ is always [ɹ̩] which is a rhotacized [ə].  
_adv*er*tis*er*_ ['ædv*ɹ̩*tɑɪz*ɹ̩*] 
_s*ea*rch*er*_ ['s*ɹ̩*ʧ*ɹ̩*]


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> [ə] and word-final (before a pause) [ɐ].


That is free variation.


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## Nino83

_searcher_ ['sɜːʧɐ] vs. _searcher_s ['sɜːʧɜz/'sɜːʧəz].  
In absolute final position before a pause the vowel becomes more open in British English.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> While in American English /er/ is always [ɹ̩]


[ɚ] is the transcription for that sound.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> _searcher_ ['sɜːʧɐ] vs. _searcher_s ['sɜːʧɜz/'sɜːʧəz].
> In absolute final position before a pause the vowel becomes more open in British English.


It is free variation. What you described might be a tendency but not a rule.

At any rate, the sounds are not perceptually distinguished. That's why English speakers find it difficult to resolve the minimal pair _keine-keiner_ in German.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> That's why English speakers find it difficult to resolve the minimal pair _keine-keiner_ in German.


So if one goes to London and pronounces _butter_ like ['bətə] and _but_ and _Bert_ like ['bət] and ['bəːt] the native speakers wouldn't find something strange in this pronunciation?


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> So if one goes to London and pronounces _butter_ like ['bətə] and _but_ and _Bert_ like ['bət] and ['bəːt] the native speakers wouldn't find


The non-distinction /ə/=[ə]~[ɐ] does not imply a merger between /ʌ/ (full vowel) and /ə/ (reduced vowel). Quality is not the only thing that distinguishes vowel phonemes.

/ə/ and /ʌ/ have overlapping but not identical variation ranges. It is nothing unusual to have different quality variation ranges for different lengths/strength categories.

In AmE on the other hand, many phoneticians argue that /ʌ/ and /ə/ are effectively merged.


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## Stoggler

Nino83 said:


> So if one goes to London and pronounces _butter_ like ['bətə] and _but_ and _Bert_ like ['bət] and ['bəːt] the native speakers wouldn't find something strange in this pronunciation?



No one would recognize ['bətə] as _butter_ (i.e. in isolation no one would - sure one could figure it out from context but the pronunciation would stick out as a little unusual)


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## Nino83

Stoggler said:


> No one would recognize ['bətə] as _butter_


Thanks. 
Do you hear any difference between the vowels in adv*er*tis*er*? 
For example here?


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## Dan2

Nino83 said:


> In British English there are at least three different sounds for stressed and unstressed /er/ (the phonetic trascription is based on Southeast British English).
> stressed [ɜː], unstressed (pretonic) [ə] and word-final (before a pause) [ɐ].
> _adv*er*tis*er*_ ['ædv*ə*tɑɪz*ɐ*]


Hi Nino.  Before we go any further: you talk about words spelled with "er", but in the case of unstressed vowels, are you drawing a distinction between unstressed "er" and unstressed vowels _not _associated with a historic/spelled 'r'?  That is, I suspect you would make the same claim (internal [ə] vs pre-pause [ɐ]) for a word like "Canada" (so ['kænədɐ]).  Is that correct?


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> That is, I suspect you would make the same claim (internal [ə] vs pre-pause [ɐ]) for a word like "Canada" (so ['kænədɐ]). Is that correct?


For me the tendency is as strong in _Canada_ and in _Miller_.

To avoid any possible misunderstanding of my position: I don't deny the tendency exist and it is so strong that there is some justification for regarding [ə] and [ɐ] as allophones of /ə/. The reason why I stop short of it and prefer to classify it as free variation is because I hear too many exceptions.


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## Stoggler

Nino83 said:


> Thanks.
> Do you hear any difference between the vowels in adv*er*tis*er*?
> For example here?



My initial thought is no, I don't hear any difference.  The more I think about it though and say the word to myself I would say that there is a subtle difference, but that difference is so slight as to be virtually unnoticeable.  That relates to my own idiolect however, which is something that approaches RP; for some speakers of Estuary English (for example) there would be a marked difference between those two sounds.  I'm not sure if [ɐ] covers what an Estuary English speaker would say, my knowledge of IPA for central vowels being somewhat iffy!


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## berndf

Stoggler said:


> My initial thought is no, I don't hear any difference. The more I think about it though and say the word to myself I would say that there is a subtle difference, but that difference is so slight as to be virtually unnoticeable.


That is exactly the answer I would have expected from my experience. For me as a German speaker, by the way, the difference is strong and unmistakable. But this is because my language has a phonemic distinction here on which a large number of minimal pairs depend. That is probably also why I notice every exception to Nino's distribution rule when I hear one.


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## Stoggler

I've just recorded myself on my phone saying "advertiser", and yes there is a noticeable difference between the two vowels.

I hate the sound of my own voice!


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## Nino83

Dan2 said:


> That is, I suspect you would make the same claim (internal [ə] vs pre-pause [ɐ]) for a word like "Canada" (so ['kænədɐ]). Is that correct?


Yes, you're right. I include /a/ schwas too (both /a/ and /er/). 


Stoggler said:


> I'm not sure if [ɐ] covers what an Estuary English speaker would say, my knowledge of IPA for central vowels being somewhat iffy!


In proper Cockney (older speakers) it could be even an [a] (and it is similar to how some Australians pronounce the word _Australia_, with a very open [a]). 
The final unstressed /a/ and /er/ in British and Australian accents is very very similar (i.e identical) to the stressed /ʌ/ so in those accent where /ʌ/ is more open, final unstressed /a/ and /er/ are more open too.  


berndf said:


> That is probably also why I notice every exception to Nino's distribution rule when I hear one.


Yes. I think it depends also on the speed of the speech but, in general, it is more open.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> The final unstressed /a/ and /er/ in British and Australian accents is very very similar (i.e identical) to the stressed /ʌ/


Not at all. They are completely different. One is a full, the other a reduced vowel. You can vary a reduced vowel in whatever direction you want. All (or at least most) reduced vowels will still sound closer to each other than to any full vowel.


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## Nino83

I don't know if they are so different (I won't say anything on this from now on), but where /ʌ/ is more open also unstressed /a/ and /er/ tend to be more open (compare, for example pizza hut of Brett, US, with that of Downunder1au, Australia and  x_WoofyWoo_x, Southeast England).


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> I don't know if they are so different (I won't say anything on this from now on), but where /ʌ/ is more open also unstressed /a/ and /er/ tend to be more open (compare, for example pizza hut of Brett, US, with that of Downunder1au, Australia and  x_WoofyWoo_x, Southeast England).


You have a general tendency to analyse vowel closeness only in terms of quality, i. e. open-close, front-back and rounded-unrounded. In the Italian 7 vowel system this is sufficient to identify each vowel (ignoring semi vowels) uniquely. You have to remind yourself that this is a specific property of certain languages, including Italian, and not a universal trait of human language as such. Other distinctions may in certain cases take priority over quality and languages that make length and stress distinctions in their vowel system might segment the vowel trapezoid differently for different length/stress categories. That makes hearing vowels with the ears of speakers of another language so difficult.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> You have a general tendency to analyse vowel closeness only in terms of quality


Of course I'm analyzing vowel quality. Do you hear any difference in length between the "a" of _pizza_ and the "u" of _hut_?


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> Of course I'm analyzing vowel quality. Do you hear any difference in length between the "a" of _pizza_ and the "u" of _hut_?


That is terribly difficult to say intuitively for me. Of course, I have my own hereditary bias. Intuitively it would not even occur to me to compare absolute vowel qualities across length categories. In my language, quality is only defined within a category (long, short, reduced). Absolute comparisons are meaningless.

Although I think I have developed a fairly good intuition for English, especially BrE, this is still something where I don't trust my own ear but calibrate my perception for each phoneme pair individually according to what native speakers tell me how they perceive their closeness.


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## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> Of course I'm analyzing vowel quality. Do you hear any difference in length between the "a" of _pizza_ and the "u" of _hut_?


In this case it is a very big difference:  ə / ʌ
Advertiser is a more subtle difference:  the first one moves closer towards /ɪ/ but is not /ɪ/, the last one rather towards /ɐ/ without it really being that either.


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## Forero

guillaumedemanzac said:


> *Moderator note: split from quoted thread.*
> 
> 
> 
> In British, PERvert is the person - That nasty little PERvert! - and perVERT is the verb -- He perVERTed the course of justice. - so the rule applies.
> 
> American English is often a perVERsion of Shakespeare's PERfect language so you should perFECT your tongue to make your pronunciation PERfect.     (just a little dig at the cousins outre-atlantique!!!)
> 
> *- couldn't resist that!!!! but sorry anyway!!*


My pronunciation:

noun ˈpɝˌvɝt
verb pɚˈvɝt
adjective ˈpɝfɘkt
verb pɚˈfɛkt

So ɝ always has stress, either with primary or secondary, and ɚ is the unstressed form of the same phoneme.

I find that if I hold the tip of my tongue down, my ɝ becomes ɜ and my ɚ becomes ə, but since the difference always depends on whether the syllable in question is stressed, I have to call ɝ and ɚ one phoneme, not two.

But I have to call ʌ and ə different phonemes because the correspondence is not one-to-one (ə is the unstressed form of multiple stressed vowels: ʌ, ɑ, etc.), and my ʌ and ə are of different quality.


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