Mid-centralized vowel
A
mid-centralized vowel is a vowel closer to the center of the vowel space than some point of reference. That is, it is closer to schwa . The diacritic used to mark this in the
International Phonetic Alphabet is the over-cross, .
In most languages, vowels become mid-centralized when spoken quickly, and in some, such as
English and
Russian, many vowels are also mid-centralized when unstressed.
Even when fully articulated, the vowels of a language may be on the schwa side of a cardinal IPA vowel. One example of this is
Lisbon Portuguese, where unstressed
e is a
near-close near-back unrounded vowel. That is, it lies between the
close back unrounded vowel and schwa, and may be written , as in
pegar "to hold".
*
centralization (phonetics)
