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Accessory noun BrE /əkˈsesəri/

What is the pronunciation of the last syllable of accessories?

  1. / r iː z /

  2. / r i z /

  3. / r ɪ z /

My guess is 3. / r ɪ z /

Bee noun BrE /biː/

What is the pronunciation of the last syllable of bees?

  1. / b iː z /

  2. / b i z /

  3. / b ɪ z /

My guess is 1. / b iː z /

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2 Answers 2

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This is partly a matter of variation between accents, and partly just an arbitrary matter of "choosing a transcription system."

The variation is in the final vowel of "accessory." As I describe in this answer, the vowel here can be identified with either the vowel of "kit" or the vowel of "fleece" depending on the accent. The pronunciation tutor Geoff Lindsey has a blog article, "The fallac[ɪj]of schwee," where he recommends that English language learners use the vowel of "fleece" for this sound even if you're trying to use a British accent.

The vowel in "bee" is always the same as the vowel in "fleece."

Transcription systems

There are many IPA transcription systems for English. As John Wells explains in the linked article, one type, the "qualitative scheme," does not use the length marker /ː/. In this scheme, the "fleece" vowel is transcribed /i/, and the "kit" vowel is transcribed /ɪ/. The last syllables of "accessories" and "bees" would be transcribed /riz/ and /biz/ or /rɪz/ and /biz/ depending on the accent of the speaker.

Another type, the "quantitative-qualitative scheme," uses the length marker to distinguish "quantity." In this scheme, the "fleece" vowel is transcribed /iː/, and the "kit" vowel is transcribed /ɪ/. The last syllables of "accessories" and "bees" would be transcribed /riːz/ and /biːz/ or /rɪz/ and /biːz/ depending on the accent of the speaker... at least, that's probably the best phonemic transcription (although apparently some phonologists, such as Dwight Bollinger, do treat "weak" vowels as distinct phonemes).

The complicated part is that even for phonologists who only recognize two vowel phonemes in this region, the use of the length marker allows us to cover the two accents with a single transcription using a kind of "shortcut": /i/, which is not used otherwise in the quantitative-qualitative scheme, can be defined as "/ɪ/ for some speakers, and /iː/ for others." This is called a "diaphonemic transcription." It is convenient in some ways, but it can also be confusing. This would give us the transcriptions /riz/ and /biːz/.

As an English language learner, you should avoid thinking of this /i/ as a third vowel that has to be distinguished in pronunciation from /ɪ/ and /iː/. It would be more accurate to think of it as not being distinguished from either of them, but that's still an unnecessary complication: as Geoff Lindsey says, it's simple and correct to just pronounce it exactly the same as /iː/.

Phonetic realization

Phonetically, Lindsey says the British English vowel /iː/ can vary between more-or-less monophthongal [i] and more diphthongized pronunciations like [ɪj].

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  • Thank you for giving a full explanation and more references. The dictionaries I often look up are "Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary" and "Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners". Collins adapted IPA symbols which is standardized in the English Pronouncing Dictionary by Daniel Jones(14th Edition 1988).
    – Stats Cruncher
    Commented Aug 17, 2016 at 9:49
  • Glad to help. That system seems to be popular, and as I said, there are some advantages to using diaphonemic symbols like /i/ (in a dictionary, it saves space since you don't have to transcribe two pronunciations for every word with a variable vowel). They just can be a little tricky sometimes since people are inclined to think "these vowels are transcribed differently, so they must be pronounced differently!" and that isn't always the case. Sometimes the pronunciation of a weak vowel is intermediate, but sometimes it just coincides with one sound or the other.
    – sumelic
    Commented Aug 17, 2016 at 9:53
  • By the way, "Collins COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners" says / i / has a sound like / i: /, but is short like / ɪ /： very / ˈveri / create / kriˈeɪt /.
    – Stats Cruncher
    Commented Aug 17, 2016 at 10:16
  • @user9418: There may be a length difference on average; that seems likely, actually. But it's hard to say that this will hold when you compare these sounds in any particular pair of words since phonetic vowel length is affected by many other factors in English, like the number of syllables in the word or the voicing of the following consonant. Using a long vowel in the first syllable of "create" won't make it sound like a different word.
    – sumelic
    Commented Aug 17, 2016 at 10:20
  • 1
    @user9418: Different people have different distributions of tense and lax variants of the "happy vowel." It is possible to have [i] in "rally" and [ɪd] in "rallied": see the comment by Steve Doerr at 10 November 2010 at 13:18 on the following blog post: "believing descriptions" (John Wells’s phonetic blog). However, it's also possible to have [i] in both or [ɪ] in both. "Identify" always has the diphthong /aɪ/, which is an entirely separate sound.
    – sumelic
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 6:32
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You can listen how to pronounce accessories in this video, In this case you have to pronounce ies like is.

When you pronounce bees, ees is pronounced like is but the i is long, You can listen the pronunciation in this video.

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