Identifying stress and unstressed syllables in a word

Question

I am taking phonetics and I am having a hard time understanding when you use [ə] and when to use [ʌ] in stressed and unstressed syllables. I am also having a hard time wrapping my head around when it is appropriate to use a glottal stop.

Answer 1

I can understand how that can be confusing, given how the schwa [ə] and caret [ʌ] represent closely similar vowel sounds.

Most simply, schwa [ə] almost always occur as an unstressed syllable.

Caret [ʌ] only occurs as a stressed syllable.

In terms of the way they sound, the caret sound is a fuller "uh" sound, like in "comfort" or "mustard." Compared to the caret, the schwa sound is made with a slightly more closed mouth, like in "sofa" and "taken." Notice how in these examples that the caret sound is stressed, while the schwa sound is unstressed.

The glottal stop is relatively distinct from this conversation about schwa and caret. Glottal stops are when air stops in the middle of a word. (Sometimes they can come at the start of a word, but that's a subject perhaps for another day.) In any case, if you place your hand or a piece of paper in front of your mouth as you say "mountain" or "butter," you'll notice that air stops in the middle of those words. That's a glottal stop!