{{Short description|Extra-short duration of a speech sound (usually a vowel)}} {{More citations needed|date=July 2019}} {{infobox IPA | ipa symbol = ◌̆ | ipa symbol2 = ◌̮ | ipa number = 505 | decimal1 = 774 | decimal2 = 814 | imagefile = IPA_Unicode_0x0306.svg }} The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) uses a breve {{angbr IPA| ˘ }} to indicate a speech sound (usually a vowel) with '''extra-short''' duration. That is, {{IPA|[ă]}} is a very short vowel with the quality of {{IPA|[a]}}. An example from English is the short schwa of the word ''police'' {{IPA|[pə̆ˈliˑs]}}.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet|author=International Phonetic Association|year=1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0521652367|page=23}}</ref> This is typical of vowel reduction.
Before the 1989 Kiel Convention, the breve was used for a non-syllabic vowel (that is, part of a diphthong), which is now indicated by an {{em|inverted}} breve placed under the vowel letter, as in ''eye'' {{IPA|[aɪ̯]}}. It is also sometimes used for any flap consonants missing dedicated symbols in the IPA, since a flap is in effect a very brief stop.
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Suprasegmentals}}
Category:Phonetics {{Phonetics-stub}}