Kim, Hyo-young. 2015. Stress and vowels of English nouns. Studies of Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology 21.3. 411-426.

The purpose of this paper is to see whether we can prove true the claim that lowness of vowels attracts stress in English. Previous research, which focused on English nouns with three syllables, showed that vowel quality as well as vowel quantity is closely related to stress location. Especially, lowness of vowels is reported to be connected to stress. In line with this research, this study examines all English nouns with one, two, four and five syllables from the database CELEX. The results demonstrate that in stressed syllables, [-high] vowels, especially [æ, ɑ], are found more frequently than the other vowels, and that these vowels are not found at all in unstressed syllables. In contrast, the [+high] vowel [ɪ] appears mainly in stressless syllables, though it appears in stressed syllables as well. However, its number increases in unstressed syllables. These findings are not surprising considering the nature of stress and the phonetic characteristics of [-high] vowels. (Kookmin University)