[ə] or [ʌ] sounds

Question

Do you pronounce the final 'a' in words like umbrella, pizza and camera with [?] or [?] sounds please?

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

[?]

[?] is in unstressed syllables; [?] is in stressed syllables.

Anonymous · Answer

Mister Micawber[?] is in unstressed syllables; [?] is in stressed syllables.

So which sound do you use in final 'a' in the names that i mentioned please?

Mister Micawber · Answer

Do you want me to spoon-feed you? Just say the words - or look them up in your dictionary - are those syllables stressed or unstressed?

Anonymous · Answer

Mister MicawberDo you want me to spoon-feed you?

Yes please.
I hear some people pronounce it with [?] and some people with [?] irrespective whether it is stressed or not, Hence, i am confused and that is why i am asking the question.

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousDo you pronounce the final 'a' in words like umbrella, pizza and camera with [?] or [?] sounds please?

[?]

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Thank You. It seems that what i hear is correct final 'a' can be pronounced as [??] which is an allophone of the phoneme /?/ as below and it sounds like [?].

Allophones of /?/

In (non-rhotic) British English there seem to be two major allophones of the phoneme /?/. The first which can be heard in potato, career or the weak form of from as an [?].
However, there's also a second allophone which it appears doesn't get much attention throughout the scientific literature. In fact, I have only found information about it in Gimson's Pronunciation of English (7th edition):
In final position
s, e.g. in 'mother, doctor, over, picture, China', the vowel may be articulated in the open-mid central position (= [??]). The acoustic formants of /?/ are, therefore, likely to be similar to those for /??/ or /?/ according to the situation.

[ə] or [ʌ] sounds

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions