Reduction/loss of unstressed vowels

Vowels in unstressed position often reduce, that is, they are pronounced with a weaker articulation. Compare photograph  and photography , in which the vowels closest to the stressed syllable reduce to schwa [ə], returning the tongue to its natural rest position. Similarly, unstressed final Latin syllables were lost altogether in the evolution to French. A consequence of this is that gender is far more difficult to determine from noun endings in French than it is in Latin. In the examples below, the masculine -us and feminine -a endings have eroded, leaving monosyllabic masculine and feminine nouns which end in consonant: