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Stress operates on metrical feet, of which syllables are components. Not all monosyllabic words in English are stressed. The articles, in fact, are typically unstressed unless contrastive emphasis is placed on them or they are uttered in isolation. In the latter case, when we pronounce them ['ei] (or ['V]) and ['DV], we are not pronouncing the function words but rather the lexical entries for their names. Articles behave more like clitics than like words. They are consistently unstressed. They attach phonologically to the next foot, the next constituent of their noun phrase. And they cannot be pronounced in isolation without changing both the vowel and the stress. Very few phonetically untrained native speakers can say [@] or [D@] in isolation. And English without a schwa is simply not an accurate representation of English. Schwa is an independent sound distinct from any of the other vowels in English and it has a different function as well, occurring in unstressed syllables that do not contain a final sonorant consonant. That the symbol represents a range of English sounds is no less true of schwa than it is of any other phonetic symbol we use. The fact that schwa is often the unstressed alternant of a some other vowel in a stressed syllable, as in /r@'pit/ vs. /,rEp@'tISn-/ does not mean that it is always an alternant. It certainly is not in words like /@'bVt/ and [log in to unmask] Herb Stahlke Ball State University -----Original Message----- From: Teaching of phonetics mailing list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Tom Zurinskas Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 4:55 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: "the' in stressed position Regarding stressed "a" and "the" in USA English, I don't understand the question. Stress refers to syllables, and "a" and "the" being one-syllable words can't help but be stressed. Regarding schwa, I have rewritten USA English without schwa. Schwa stands for a variety of sounds already covered in the USA English foenubet (foenubet is my term for the set of phonemes of a language- see Truespel Book One below). I've made a listing of the frequency of use of phonemes for USA English both as present in the truespel dictionary and in common speech (appearance in a newspaper). Common speech accounts for frequency of use of some words more than others. I wonder if there are any other USA English phoneme frequency listings that I can compare to. Tom Zurinskas Truespel Book One: Analysis of the Sounds (Phonemes) of USA English http://www.1stbooks.com/cgi-bin/1st?partner~1st|type~6|Data1~16593 Convert English to truespel (USA accent) by copy/pasting at http://www.foreignword.com/dictionary/truespel/transpel.htm Truespel is the world's first pronunciation guide spelling system (uses letters of the keyboard only with stress indicated). See truespel.com. Write [log in to unmask] >From: Ricardo Paderni <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: Ricardo Paderni <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: "the' in stressed position >Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 16:11:20 -0300 > >Recently I've heard on an American TV programme the pronunciation of "the" >as [D@] in what was clearly a stressed position. I was wondering if this is >something characteristic of American pronunciation or if it's also found in >other accents in Britain such as RP, and how well accepted this is. And one >more thing, is the pronunciation of the indefinite article with [@] gaining >ground in stressed position as well? Thanks > >Ricardo Paderni _________________________________________________________________ Send instant messages to anyone on your contact list with MSN Messenger 6.0. Try it now FREE! http://msnmessenger-download.com