American English Phonetics

7.9 Miscellaneous gradation words

The second column gives the SF, the third the WF, and the fourth column gives an illustration of the use of the WF.

The following gradation words have not been discussed so far:

	SF	WF	Example
as	æz	əz	as white as snow
than	ðæn	ðən	better than ever
and	ænd	ən	black and blue
but	bʌt	bət	poor but happy
or	ɔr	ər	three or four
because	bɪkɑːz	bɪkəz	not because I like it

The SFs occur when the words are stressed. The SF of than will not normally occur. As, on the other hand, frequently has its SF at the beginning of a clause. It is always /æz/ when it is equivalent to Dutch naarmate: As /æz/ the gale increased in force, more and more reports of uprooted trees and blown-off rooftops were coming in.