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Is there a word in RP (Received Pronunciation) where the stressed vowel sound is a schwa?

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  • I wonder if the u in the un- prefix qualifies as a schwa. It feels like the same sound in words like unhappy.
    – Robusto
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 11:24
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    @Robusto: Received Pronunciation the u in un- is ʌ (Open-mid back unrounded) whereas schwa is ə (Mid-central).
    – hippietrail
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 13:40
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    How about "uh". Despite what the dictionaries say (ʌ), I think many Americans pronounce it as a schwa. I don't know about RP, though.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 14:21
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    @Peter Shor: in BrE, we spell it er (being non-rhotic), and yup, we usually pronounce it as as something fairly close to a schwa.
    – PLL
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 18:02
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    Just opinion: Since I was an elementary school student and learned the word "schwa", I have always thought it sounds the same as "u" (what @hippie wrote as ^) (un-,up,ugh!)
    – TecBrat
    Commented Aug 22, 2012 at 3:15

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The word schwa can mean two things:

In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (sometimes spelled shwa) can mean the following:

  • An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel. Such vowels are often transcribed with the symbol <ə>, regardless of their actual phonetic value.
  • The mid-central vowel sound (rounded or unrounded) in the middle of the vowel chart, stressed or unstressed. In IPA phonetic transcription, it is written as [ə]. In this case the term mid-central vowel may be used instead of schwa to avoid ambiguity.

— From the Wikipedia article about schwa

If we go by the first definition, which is a phonological definition, then the answer is no, there are no stressed schwas in Received Pronunciation because schwa refers exclusively to unstressed sounds.

If we go by the second definition, which is a purely phonetic definition, then the answer is a resounding “maybe”. The second definition says “in IPA phonetic transcription” meaning the word schwa could refer to a vowel sound (in any language) that has the vowel quality defined as “mid-central”. Traditional phonetic descriptions of Received Pronunciation give the vowel quality of the NURSE lexical set as [ɜː], which is the IPA for an open-mid central unrounded vowel, a sound very close to but not quite the same as a mid-central vowel. However, a careful narrow transcription of some particular speaker’s production of the NURSE vowel might be given using the symbol [ə], in which case you could make the claim that this is a “stressed schwa”

Nevertheless, this is a pretty contrived scenario. The usual symbol used to transcribe the NURSE vowel is [ɜː] not [ə].

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    The only words I can conceive of that has a stressed schwa (second sense) in English are but, the, and possibly just. Traditionally, the stressed version of but and just have been [ˈbʌt] and [ˈjʌst], but I hear more and more RP speakers stressing them as [ˈbət] and [ˈjəst], with a clearly non-differentiated schwa. The has never, to my knowledge, been stressed as [ˈðʌ] in RP—only [ˈðə] and [ˈðiː] are possible. In other words, when inherently, lexically unstressed monosyllabics receive emphatic stress, they may keep their schwa.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 11:43
  • Since it's necessary to represent stress anyway in English transcription, a stressed schwa is simply a caret (which doesn't occur unstressed in American English, at least). So phonemically, schwa represents all the central vowels, since there is nothing for it to contrast with. One might exclude retroflexed vowels, or represent them as /Vr/ sequence, which would make the vowel of church /ər/.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Jun 11, 2023 at 18:20
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To quote wikipedia:

In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (sometimes spelled shwa) can mean the following:

  • An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel. Such vowels are often transcribed with the symbol <ə>, regardless of their actual phonetic value.

  • The mid-central vowel sound (rounded or unrounded) in the middle of the vowel chart, stressed or unstressed. In IPA phonetic transcription, it is written as [ə]. In this case the term mid-central vowel may be used instead of schwa to avoid ambiguity.

So it seems it has two meanings. One which by definition is unstressed. The other which can be in some languages.

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    I was wondering whether the IPA vowel /ə/ can be stressed in English words.
    – user4727
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 10:25
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Unlike other answers here, the answer is no. The schwa ə in English IPA transcriptions indicates an unstressed sound.

You can see the Weak and strong forms as an example. Same goes for nouns.

Father is an example, or see this Wikipedia article, where I found this list:

  • the 'a' in about [əˈbaʊt]
  • the 'e' in taken [ˈteɪkən]
  • the 'i' in pencil [ˈpɛnsəl]
  • the 'o' in eloquent [ˈɛləkwənt]
  • the 'u' in supply [səˈplaɪ]
  • the 'y' in sibyl [ˈsɪbəl]

EDIT:

Like I said under z7sg's answer, I can't understand why some dictionaries disagree.

In the past I had to train for Uni in order to recognize the different "vowel" sounds in English, I'm talking about BrE, and I found this, the British Council / BBC Phonemic Chart.

If you click on ə, you will hear a short schwa sound, but if you click on ɜ: you will clearly hear the same sound but longer, i.e. the long schwa sound. I find it quite ambiguous to render those different sounds with the same symbol.

The difference can be heard when saying "Teach[er]" and "B[ir]d".

See also this. When I used to do IPA transcriptions in my faculty, the schwa always figured in the unstressed syllables.

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    @Alenanno: IANA linguist, but as I understand, the difference between the vowels of teachER and EARth is almost entirely one of length, and vowel length is generally indicated in IPA by ː, not by a change of symbol. There’s no ambiguity in writing ə for a short schwa and əː for long one, surely?
    – PLL
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 13:31
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    @Alenanno But the short form of i: (ee in see) is not ɪ but i (y in city).
    – z7sg Ѫ
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 16:36
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    @Alenanno, @z7sg: I think @Colin Fine’s comment on the other thread pretty much nails it, actually. Between the vowels of earth and teacher, there’s a big difference of length and a slight difference of position. But since vowel length isn’t generally phonemic in English, the position disctinction (ə/ɜ) is what gets traditionally used to distinguish them.
    – PLL
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 18:00
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    @Peter the IPA symbols are defined independently of their use in transcribing any particular language.
    – nohat
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 4:56
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    @nohat: That is essentially what I mean. A phonetic transcription shows what people actually say, from an outside perspective, whereas a phonemic transcription shows only what people think they're saying, or how they conceptualise it, which is only useful from an in-language standpoint. Dictionaries can use phonemic transcription all they want, but we're talking about phonetics at the moment.
    – Jon Purdy
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 5:43
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No. Schwa is never stressed in any English word.

The human voice is capable of stressing it of course and schwa is indeed stressed in other languages including Romanian.

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  • The ə/uh in [səˈplaɪ] supply. that also occurs in some pronunciations of Pencil. pen sul. Is that not a vocal schwa, occurring in English? I know hebrew has vocal schwa, that is like that.
    – barlop
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 19:26
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    @barlop: That syllable isn't stressed, though. Unless you're talking about the adverb of supple, in which case it's an /ʌ/.
    – user4727
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 19:41
  • good point, it's not stressed in supply.. hmm, I was thinking Burn or Dirt but I see dictionary.cambridge(british pronunciation) /bɜːn/ or /bûrn/ american pronunciation. no upside down e at all so I suppose it's not even a schwa?
    – barlop
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 20:22
  • @barlop: Hebrew schwa/sheva is quite different than English schwa. It has both silent and pronounced versions. But I don't know much more as my Hebrew never advanced very far (-:
    – hippietrail
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 20:48
  • @hippietrail the silent one hebrew has does nothing probably isn't even a sound, it might just be a mark to symbolise no sound to help prevent a scribe from accidentally putting one in. But the vocal schwa in hebrew has a few pronunications some use one, some use another, a common one is ə the same as schwa in English. It could be that in hebrew it doesn't have stress either or rarely does.
    – barlop
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 21:15
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Yes, stressed schwa seems to occur in some British dialects.

Stressed schwa occurs in other languages. Here's an excellent excerpt from Wells 2014:

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Oostendorp 2000 astutely observes that schwa "avoids stressed positions" [emphasis mine - Alex B.].

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  • I would take issue with this (rather than say out-and-out "It's wrong). My southern-England English certainly doesn't pronounce 'cause the same as a stressed (be)cause; the adverb just the same when it's stressed as unstressed; or the two syllables of gonna the same. There is a qualitative difference.
    – Andrew Leach ♦
    Commented Oct 1, 2016 at 18:31
  • @Andrew: I actually always pronounce just (the adverb) with a schwa, even when it's stressed, so it differs from just (the adjective). But I believe that's an idiosyncrasy, and not typical in American speech. Wells's quote is probably just saying that some British speakers do the same thing.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Oct 1, 2016 at 20:36
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What about word because? Especially it's weak form. According to Collin's, Cambridge, Oxford dictionary it's /bɪˈkəz/.

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    You cannot — by definition — have a stressed schwa. The OED has /bɪˈkɔːz/ or /bɪˈkɒz/ there, and those with the cot–caught merge get /bɪˈkʌz/ with /bəˈkʌz/ in fast speech due to reduction. Yes, those can all reduce to schwa when unstressed, but when stressed, they get different identities. And the second syllable, being stressed, howsoever you should fold, spindle, or mutilate it, you cannot get to a schwa. Only when in very fast speech where the entire word loses stress (and most of its first syllable) can /b(ə)kəz/ occur. So it can occur in fast, connected speech but not otherwise.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Nov 24, 2014 at 13:55
  • I’ve looked into this a bit more carefully, and I discover that with Oxford Dictionaries Online, their IPA for UK English is /bɪˈkɒz/, which agrees with the OED (well, in part) and is to be expected. The /bēˈkəz/ you find there under the American English entry for that word is not written in actual IPA, as its first vowel reveals. It uses some misleading faux-pronunciation respelling system, and therefore its schwa isn’t a real one.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Nov 24, 2014 at 14:10
  • The weak form of because has no stressed syllables: it should be written in IPA as /bɪkəz/. In sentences where the syllable following because is stressed, /bɪkəz/ is perfectly normal in speech. But it's not a schwa in a stressed syllable. Similarly, the weak forms of just and but have schwas, but they're not stressed syllables (despite the fact that they are single-syllable words).
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Nov 24, 2014 at 15:16
  • Thanks a lot guys. When it comes to words like 'just', 'but', 'that' and so one, I understand it. But I was astonished with 'because', especially that in Collins and Cambridge dictionaries the stress is marked.
    – user98893
    Commented Nov 26, 2014 at 23:59
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For me, the first vowel in "children" is pretty damn close to a stressed schwa. Dictionaries tend to list it as a short i, to which I say, maybe in your dialect. But I think it's probably unique.

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  • Is your dialect RP, as asked about in the question?
    – Matt E. Эллен
    Commented Nov 12, 2013 at 12:56
  • Yep. Faintly US-influenced, as I grew up there, but I spent most of my life in the south of England prior to 2004, and that's what I'm used to hearing.
    – Adrian Smith
    Commented Nov 18, 2013 at 6:31
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Of course it can appear in the stressed syllable. It always occurs in the mono-syllabic articles 'the'and 'a' (except in certain syntactic exceptions like 'the elephant').

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    But these are not stressed.
    – Rosie F
    Commented Nov 25, 2019 at 10:52
  • But what do you mean by 'these'? The articles may not take the nuclear stress in a longer utterance, but as the syllabic vowel they are stressed. Stress is represented by a syllable, and a syllable must, by definition, contain a vowel. So the schwa is indeed 'stressed'
    – Philip Ball
    Commented Nov 25, 2019 at 11:19

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