Stress is a prominent feature of the
English language, both at the level of the word
(lexical stress) and at the level of the phrase or sentence
(prosodic stress). Absence of stress on a syllable, or on a word in some cases, is frequently associated in English with
vowel reduction – many such syllables are pronounced with a centralized vowel (
schwa) or with certain other vowels that are described as being "reduced" (or sometimes with a
syllabic consonant as the syllable nucleus rather than a vowel). Various
phonological analyses exist for these phenomena.