Back to Matrix [ə] → [ɛ] Edit this Data

[ɛ]→[ə]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 5/5

Vowel Reduction Centralization Germanic

Open-mid front unrounded vowel to Mid central vowel

Reduction of [ɛ] to the neutral vowel schwa [ə] is an extremely common process in unstressed syllables across many languages, particularly English.

Phonetic Effects

Vowel Reduction

Language Examples

English Germanic

celebrate [ˈsɛl.ɪ.breɪt]→[ˈsɛl.ə.breɪt]— Unstressed medial [ɛ/ɪ] reduces to schwa.

the [ðɛ] (stressed)→[ðə] (unstressed)— The definite article reduces its vowel to schwa when unstressed, a ubiquitous English reduction.

Related Transformations

More Germanic Shifts

[a] → [ã] — Assimilatory Nasalization [a] → [∅] — Elision [a] → [ʔ] — Glottalization [a] → [ə] — Vowel Reduction [æ] → [ɛ] — Vowel Raising

Sources & References

Ladefoged, P. & Johnson, K. (2015). A Course in Phonetics (7th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Spotted a mistake or have a better example?

EchoDrift is community-driven. You can suggest a change directly through GitHub.

Propose an Edit on GitHub