TRANSCRIPTION OF REDUCED VOWELS IN THE BULGARIAN LANGUAGE USING THE SYMBOLS OF THE IPA (INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET)

Abstract

Vowel reduction is a striking and important feature of Bulgarian pronunciation. This study examines the unstressed allophonic realizations of the broad vowels a and o and the symbols for their transcription from the International Phonetic Alphabet. The degree of change depends on the syllable’s position relative to the stress – in the first pre-stressed syllable, the reduction is weaker. In the present text, it is denoted by the symbol [ɐ], in all other unstressed positions, the chosen symbol is [ə]. The IPA symbol [o] is preferred for representing the weak reduction of the vowel o, and for a strongly reduced vowel – [ʊ]. The text is part of a larger research in the field of phonetics, which includes an online platform with a substantial collection of transcribed examples, each accompanied by an audio recording and an English translation of the word.