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Varieties of American English

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Varieties of American English Varieties of American English S. Gramley, WS 2009‐10 Vowel Systems of AmE GenAm and some regional variation Consonants are identical everywhere in English-speaking North America with the following possible exceptions • some regions still have /hw/ (some of the GenAm area, Ontario) • T-dropping after nasals (winter = winner) is more Southern than general • /d/ for /z/ in isn’t, wasn’t, doesn’t is Southern • T-flapping is general •/D/ and /T/ may be realized as initial /d/ and /T/, but final /v/ and /T/ in AAVE, as /d/, /dD/, or /D/ and /t/, /tT/, or /T/ in New York or; Newfoundland has initial /d/ and /t/, but possibly final /f/ • /l/ is dark […] almost everywhere and is vocalized in the South and in NYC • GenAm is rhotic, but Eastern New England, UC and WC NYC, and parts of the coastal South are non-rhotic • Yod-dropping (new, tune, due) is widespread – but with some hypercorrection in moon and noon Peripherality iy i ey e æ 1 2 ah ay See W. Labov‘s homepage: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/PowerPoints/PowerPoints.html beat iy bit i ey bait bet e æ bat 2 ah ay bite The vowel system of GenAm i˘ u˘ IU IU x e˘ ´ eŒ˘ √ç˘ ç Q A˘ a a vowels wide diphthongs The Great Vowel Shift (GVS) in Southern England and in Northern England and Scotland front vowels back vowels (England and Scotland) (S. England) (North and Scotland) i˘ u˘ y˘ u˘ e˘ eI oU o˘ ø˘o˘ E˘ ç˘ ç˘ a˘ examples of the shift time [i˘] → [eI] foul [u˘] → [oU] house = hus [u˘] teem [e˘] → [i˘] fool [o˘] → [u˘] good [o˘] → [ø(˘)] or [i˘] team [E˘] → [e˘] foal [ç˘] → [o˘] foal [ç˘] → [o˘] tame [a˘] → [E˘] The phonemes of English c. 1600 (Shakespeare), c. 1800 (Webster) and 2000 monoph- front central back wide closing diphthongs thongs Sh Web Mod Sh Web Mod Sh Web Mod pre- Sh Web Mod AmE AmE AmE GVS AmE high-long i˘ i˘ i˘ ˆ˘ u˘ u˘ u˘/¨˘ i˘ √i ai aI high- i i I u u U ou √u au AU short mid-long e˘ e˘ e˘/eI Œ˘ o˘ o˘ o˘/o çi Ai ai çI U mid- ee e √√ √ o short low-long Q˘ Q˘ Q˘/ A˘ A˘A/ iu ju˘ ju˘ / ju˘/ Q ç˘ ˆ˘ j¨˘ low-short QQ AA The major changes from Shakespeare (late 16th – early 17th century) to Webster (late 18th – early 19th)): • the phonemicization of high central /ˆ/ • the phonemicization of short mid-back /o/ • the monophthongization of /ju˘/ to /ˆ˘/ after /t,d,S,j/(truth, duke, sure, your) • the continuation of the GVS with the lowering of /´I/ to /aI/ and of /´u/ to /AU/ and the monophthongization of both to /a/ in front of stops. The major changes from Webster’s times to today (late 20th – early 21st century): • reversal of phonemicization of high central /ˆ/ • the dephonemicization of length in favor of phonetic quality, e.g. /i/ as /I/and /u/ as /U/ • phonemicization of /Œ˘/ • regionally differing diphthongization of /e˘/ and /o˘/ to /eI/and /oU/ • varying loss of the potential low back distinctions between /A(˘)/, /ç˘/, and /Å/ • backing of the first element of /çI/ • varying fronting of [u˘] to [¨˘] Principles of vowel chain shifts I. Tense or long (peripheral) vowels rise. II. Lax, short (non-peripheral) vowels fall (IIa: nuclei of upgliding diphthongs and short nuclei do not merge). III. Back vowels move to the front. IV. In chain shifting, low non-peripheral vowels become peripheral. V. In chain shifting, high peripheral vowels become non-peripheral before peripheral glides. VI. Peripherality is defined relative to the vowel system as a whole. VII. Mergers expand at the expense of distinctions. VIII. Mergers initiate pull shifts and inhibit push shifts. Principles I – III are widely operative in Indo-European languages. IV is also quite general. V applies only to Baltic, Slavic, and Germanic languages, not to the Indic, Greek, Italic, or Celtic branches or to Albanian, perhaps because the phonetic space in these languages is simpler (without tense and lax tracks) (Labov 1991: 10f). General Principles of Chain Shifting. Example: /Q/ splits into two categories in NYC: • long (before voiced consonants) and • short before voiceless ones: [Q˘´] vs. [Q] as in bad and bat. Or: caught vs. cot with [碴] vs. [Å]. Crucial for tense vowels is that they are peripheral. What are chain shifts? Pull chain: One sound moves from its original place and leaves a gap. An existing sound rushes to fill the gap whose place is filled by another sound Push chain: One sound invades the territory of another sound. The original occupant moves away before the two sounds merge into one. Pull chains are more common than push chains Pull and push chains can coexist in one change Cockney diphthongs with a front second element in comparison with RP RP i˘ eI aI çI Cockney ´i aI ÅI oI Cockney diphthongs with a back second element in comparison with RP RP AU ´U u˘ Cockney Q˘ a-U ´¨ ~ ¨˘ Northern Cities Shift Chicago Detroit Cleveland Buffalo Rochester Syracuse Northern Cities Shift (adapted z non-peripheral [I] falls to [e] from Mesthrie et al. 2000: 141) bit → bet /I/ → /e/ z non-peripheral [e] falls to [Q˘] or centralizes to [√] bet → but /e/→ /√/ bet → bat /e/ → /Q/ - central [√] backs to [ç˘] lunch → launch /√/ → /ç/ z non-peripheral [ç˘] falls to peripheral [A˘] ([A˘] pulls [ç˘] [√] behind it) talk → tuck /ç/ → /A/ z [A˘] begins to front locks → lax /A/ → /Q/ z peripheral [Q˘] rises to [e´] Check out: Ann → Ian /Q/ → /I/ http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query =william+labov&search_type=&aq=f Midland Shift/Low Back Merger Pittsburgh Boston General Principles Governing Merger “Sound changes affect phonological systems in one of two opposing ways. Chain shifts rotate features and preserve distinctions; mergers neutralize features and lose distinctions. Chain shifts are evidence of the tendency of sound systems to preserve their primary function of identifying meaningful units, and mergers are evidence that some other force powerful enough to override that function, must be at work” (Labov 1991: 28). After merger, the phonetic space available to the merged phoneme is greater, and this inhibits push shifts. At the same time the merger itself is part of a strong pull phenomenon. This means that a merger enlarges the stock of words involved in a pull chain but removes words from participation in a push chain by removing the pressure from a potential push. Midland Shift: Low Back Merger z smallest of the three areas z features and changes less distinctive than in North and South z also called: caught–cot merger z both words pronounced identically The Southern Shift Word Phrase Sentence 1. _________ ________________ ___________________________ 2. _________ ________________ ___________________________ 3. _________ ________________ ___________________________ 4. _________ ________________ ___________________________ 5. _________ ________________ ___________________________ 6. _________ ________________ ___________________________ 7. _________ ________________ ___________________________ 8. _________ ________________ ___________________________ 9. _________ ________________ ___________________________ 10. ________ ________________ ___________________________ The Southern Shift hit kids beatin’ set bed Danny grade Guy wipin’ In how far does the vowel shift influence daily life? Ex.: Raising of /I/ to [i:ə] A woman from outside of Texas told a Texan that her son was named "Ian". The Texan couldn't understand why anybody would name a child something so strange as the preposition IN. The merger of /I/ and /e/ before nasal consonants • pin = pen in perception and production in the majority of south identical (see map on next slide) The Southern Shift is to be found in southern England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the US (Middle Atlantic states, the Southern Mountain region, the Upper and Lower South). In it we find that (1) /Q/ remains, while in most American ones it splits into long, tensed [Q˘], which moves much as in the Northern Cities Shift, and short, lax [Q], which remains in place. (2) long and short o, realized as ç(˘) and A(˘), remain separate (not merged as in the low back merger). The Southern Shift (3) the first element of the closing diphthongs downshift: [Ii] → [´I] [eI] → [aI] so that [aI] → [ÅI] (BrE, AusE varieties) or [aI] → [A˘] (Southern AmE) [Uu] → [´U] [oU] → [´U] → [aU] so that [aU] → [Qo] (4) the back vowels are fronted [u˘] → [¨˘] [oU] → [´U] → [√U] (5) the short front vowel become peripheral and move upward: [Q] → [3Q3] [e] → [e3] [I] → [I3] “It is radical rotations of vowel systems, and not differences of inventory, that account for the greatest differences between vowel systems and for problems of cross‐dialectal comprehension. In these rotations, whole sets of vowels reverse their relative positions to each other; phones that represent one phoneme in one dialect represent an entirely different phoneme in another.” (3) There are three types of phonetic change responsible for the current diversity of the vowel systems: (1) chain shifting, (2) mergers, (3) shifts of syllabicity (3). As a result of these principles, which combine in a limited number of ways, there appear to be “two major types of English dialects, moving in diametrically opposite directions” (4). By adding in the effect of mergers we get a third major type. They are vaguely parallel to the North – Midland –South division, or even to the more traditional division in AmE into North, South, and West (3) Sources • http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/linguistics/russell/138/sec5/ipavsna.htm • http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter1/vowels.html • http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/NationalMap/NationalMap.html#Heading 6 z http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8MsdcFNUE8 z http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UoJ1-ZGb1w&translated=1 z Aitchison, J.
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