[o]→[ʌ]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 4/5

Close-mid back rounded vowel to Open-mid back unrounded vowel

The shift from the rounded back vowel [o] to the unrounded back/central vowel [ʌ] (the caret or 'strut' vowel) is a form of unrounding. It frequently occurs as a result of vowel reduction in unstressed positions or through systemic dialectal shifts where the rounding feature is lost while maintaining tongue height.

Phonetic Effects

Unrounding, Vowel Reduction, Akanje

Language Examples

Russian Slavic

вода (voda) [o]→[vʌˈda]— Akanje: Unstressed [o] immediately before the stress is realized as an unrounded near-open central vowel [ɐ/ʌ].

American English Germanic

hover [o]→[ˈhʌvəɹ]— Re-stressing of reduced vowels often results in the [ʌ] quality rather than the historical rounded [ɒ].

Related Transformations

Reverse

More Germanic Shifts

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

Sources & References

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