[ə]→[æ]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 5/5

Mid central vowel to Near-open front unrounded vowel

The shift from the neutral schwa [ə] to the near-open front vowel [æ] is a common form of re-stressing. In stress-timed languages like English, many words alternate between a reduced 'weak' form (used in fluent speech) and a full 'strong' form (used for emphasis or in isolation).

Phonetic Effects

Re-stressing, Strong-form Restoration

Language Examples

English (Function Words) Germanic

can [kən]→[kæn]— Restoration of the full vowel when the word is stressed for emphasis.

that [ðət]→[ðæt]

Southern American English Germanic

address [ə]→[æd-]— Dialectal tendency to shift stress forward and restore full vowel qualities in prefixes.

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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