Talk:Phonological history of English vowels/Archive 1

Moved from the old Talk:Tense-lax neutralization page

Re: In most varieties of English, this occurs in particular before /ŋ/ …

How is ‘most’ defined in this context? I was of the impression that this was a feature limited to (Nth?) American English. Of course, I think they make up the majority of English speakers...

— Felix the Cassowary 14:12, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I think what is being referred to is the lack of a contrast between, say /i:/ and /I/ before /ŋ/. In my dialect (northern England, mild accent but not quite RP), /ŋ/ usually only occurs after the "lax" vowels /a/ (bang), /E/ (length), /I/ (sing), /Q/ (song), /V/ (sung), /U/ (Chung); it doesn't occur after the "tense" or "long" vowels, though it can occur after /OI/ (boing).

I'm not sure about the reference to TLN before /ʃ/ and /g/, though, or before /r/ in non-American rhotic accents: I believe Scottish English typically has the same set of contrasts before /r/ as it does everywhere else.--JHJ 16:32, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Some Americans have reported pronouncing 'bang' as /beiŋ/, -ing as -eeng, and rhyme 'bag' and 'vague'; I assumed he was talking about that. As for the fact that in most dialects you don't get /ŋ/ after lax vowels, that's because of the baggage the language comes with. It's not tense-lax neutralisation though. — Felix the Cassowary 00:03, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it's a merger of /eɪ/ and /ɛ/ before /g/. My speech has this merger ('beg' and 'vague' rhyme, at least sometimes), so I added an example of this to the page. I also added an example of the same merger before /ʃ/, but I don't have this merger, so I'm not sure if I have it right. Someone can remove if they don't think it's real. I can, however, vouch for the former being very much real. Nohat 07:35, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Ah, of course, lax counterpart of /ei/ is /ɛ/, so that makes more sense. Thanks! It's always amazing what English dialects will do :) — Felix the Cassowary 12:41, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Cot-cut merger

I've removed the following.

The cot-cut merger is a phonominum occurring in Cameroon English where the phonemes /Q/ and /ʌ/ are not distinguished. As a result, pairs like "cot" and "cut", "fond" and "fund" etc. are homophones. /Q/ and /ʌ/ also generally merge with /ɔ/ in Cameroon English, resulting in the words "cot", "cut" and "cord" (with a devoiced /d/) being homophones. {1996 Loreso [sic: Do you mean "Loreto"?] Todd and Ian Hancock}

The reason was that the reference does not include the title and publisher of the book/article. Someone please provide a full reference. Note also that this section needs spell-checking and coversion to IPA. --Jimp 01:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

en-dashes

Would anyone object if I were to go through this and related pages replacing hyphens with en-dashes in compounds containing two nouns in apposition, thus trap-bath → trap–bath, etc., per WP:STYLE#En_dashes §1? (Obviously this contrasts with compounds such as æ-tensing in which one noun qualifies the other; here a hyphen is correct.) —Blotwell 01:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Bud-bird merger

this is under "phonological history of low back vowels" but... since when are /ɛ/ and /ʌ/ low back vowels? Jack^(Lumber) 16:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Nurse-square merger

This occurs in some areas of England. In the Liverpool area and the east coast of Yorkshire (including Middlesbrough and Hull), the sets are merged to /ɛː/. In south Lancashire (Wigan, Bolton, etc.), they're merged to /ɜː/. This is mentioned in Wells' Accents of English: see pp.372, 421, 444. I think that it should be included somewhere in the article. I've not added it myself, as it's difficult to fit into the current template of the article, which divides mergers before coda r and mergers with an intervolic r. Which one should this merger go into, or should it be in a category of its own? Epa101 (talk) 17:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

[ɒr] vs. [ɔr]

As for these listed mergers:

1. The card–cord merger is a merger of Early Modern English [ɑr] with [ɒr], found in some Caribbean, English West Country and Southern and Western U.S. accents.
2. The horse–hoarse merger is the merger of /ɔ/ and /oʊ/ before historic /r/ occurring in most varieties of English.

I presume from the use of the vowel symbol ɒ in [ɒr] that the writer is using this symbol to represent the historic "short O" as in Tom, hot, etc. In that case, isn't the vowel in 'horse' the same vowel? (otherwise put, is there any English dialect anywhere which contrasts the vowels in 'cord' vs. 'horse'?)Jakob37 (talk) 08:16, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

GVS

Thought we should have at least a mention of the GVS. Can anyone think of examples to illustrate /oː/ as well as /ɔː/? A bit of a complication there with Latin /oː/ behaving like ME /ɔː/, and I can't think of an example of ME /oː/. (Moon—month is irregular, isn't it?) — kwami (talk) 23:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Pam-palm merger

Not making a distinction between Pam and palm is a feature of Scottish and Ulster accents (and possibly some English accents). I don't see any mention of it here. Is it a merger or a historical retention? I'm not sure. Accentman (talk) 15:10, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

At Phonological history of English short A#British accents there is a very brief mention of the fact that some accents don't distinguish the TRAP and PALM vowels. It's certainly something that should be expanded upon (in that article, not this one) if you can find reliable sources for it. Angr (talk) 18:43, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Accentman (talk) 17:23, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

ər and ɛr merger

In some rhotic dialects, such as mine, these two sounds have merged. I am not sure what caused this, but could someone add it to the page with references.67.190.91.174 (talk) 03:32, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Are you talking about the furry-ferry merger? Angr (talk) 18:34, 11 June 2014 (UTC)