ABSTRACT
A small set of vowels, known as the weak vowels, predominate in unstressed syllables. One notable characteristic of weak syllables is that in certain circumstances, learners can have a consonant as their nucleus. Strong syllables, in contrast, must always center around a vowel. Syllabic consonants develop out of sequences of schwa and a sonorant, the more vowel-like type of consonant. When these sequences are preceded by particular consonants, the articulators can move directly from the consonant to the sonorant, skipping the schwa altogether. A number of high-frequency monosyllabic grammatical words (i.e., auxiliary verbs, prepositions, personal pronouns, conjunctions, and articles) have more than one pronunciation. Although we are typically more conscious of the strong forms of words than the weak forms, the weak forms are actually more common because grammatical words are usually unstressed, in contrast to lexical words (i.e., nouns, main verbs, adjectives, and adverbs), which are typically stressed.
