I was reading an article the other day and I came across an interesting passage:
Notice that the weak form of the is typically [ði] before a
vowel-initial word (the apple) but [ðə] before a consonant-initial
word (the pear), although this distinction is being lost in the United
States. [26]
I'm concerned with the United States part. Is it true that American speakers don't make this distiction? I have never found this information in any book on accents for English learners or actors. It seems to have been taken from this book:
Ladefoged, Peter (2006), A Course in Phonetics, Thomson.
Since I don't have it, and I can't find it anywhere on the Internet, I can't really check its contents. Are there any American speakers here who don't make this distinction when speaking? And even could provide some additional sources? As I can't find any. Thanks for your time.
The link to the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_and_vowel_reduction_in_English
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