Also vowels of full quality sometimes appear in unstressed positions. It happens in borrowed words of Latin and Greek origin: archit
ect [ə:kitekt], parag
raph [pærəra:f], canteen [kænti:n].
The phonemic status of the neutral sound [ə].
At this point we should discuss the phonemic status of the neutral sound [ə]. The phonological analysis is made with the help of oppositions of the words. If sounds (two variants of one sound) change the meaning of the words then a sound is a separate phoneme:
officers – offices accept – except armour – army
In these examples the neutral sound [ə] is opposite to the phoneme [i] It differentiates the meaning of the words so in these examples [ə]
is a separate
phoneme. But there are some other examples:
In discussing vowels we should turn to vowel reduction. The modifications of vowels in speech are traced in the following directions: quantitative, qualitative or both these changes of vowels of speech are determined by many factors:
Some sound alternations depend on the history of English and are called historical.