Phonological history of English high front vowels ||This article
needs attention from an expert on the subject. (December 2011)|
Weak-vowel merger  The weak-vowel merger is a phonemic merger of
/ə/ (schwa) with unstressed /ɪ/ (sometimes transcribed as /ɨ/ or
/ᵻ/) in certain dialects of English. As a result of this merger
the words abbot and rabbit rhyme; in accents without the merger
they are distinct. The merger is nearly complete in the Southern
Hemisphere accents and General American, and complete in
Hiberno-English. Even in accents that generally maintain the
distinction, it may still likely merge in other circumstances: -
/ər/ and /ɨr/ have merged in virtually all accents when they
occur at the end of a word or before consonants.[dubious ] These
two sequences are otherwise less likely to merge before vowels,
but still more likely to merge than /ə/ and /ɨ/ alone. In
Received Pronunciation, this became /ər/ before vowels, and /ə/
elsewhere. In General American, this became /ɚ/ in all
positions. - /əl/ and