nonaccented

Nonaccented is an adjective used to describe something lacking accent or emphasis, and it is used in several domains including linguistics and orthography. In linguistics, it commonly refers to syllables, vowels, or words that do not bear primary or secondary stress, or that do not display pitch accent. In orthography and computing, nonaccented refers to letters written without diacritics (such as a instead of á) or to forms produced by removing diacritics.

In phonology, nonaccented segments are typically unstressed; they may have reduced vowels and lighter consonants depending on the language. English, for instance, often uses a reduced vowel in nonaccented syllables, while emphasized syllables are more prominent. In other languages, the pattern of accentuation varies, with some languages maintaining consistent vowel quality across syllables.

In writing and data processing, many systems transform accented characters to nonaccented equivalents for compatibility or search purposes. This diacritic stripping or ASCII transliteration converts é to e and ñ to n. Unicode provides normalization forms that can decompose characters and, in some modes, remove diacritics. The term nonaccented therefore spans pronunciation, spelling, and text handling.