Father-bother merger

The father-bother merger is a merger of the Early Modern English vowels /ɑː/ and /ɒ/ that occurs in almost all varieties of North American English (exceptions are accents in Eastern New England (such as the Boston accent) and New York-New Jersey English.[1], (Wells 1982: 245–47, Labov et al. 2006: 171). In those accents with the merger father and bother rhyme, and Kahn and con are homophonous as [kɑn]. Unrounding of EME /ɒ/ is found also in Norwich, the West Country and in Hiberno-English, but apparently with no phonemic merger. (Wells 1982: 339–40, 419) Early Modern English refers to the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period (the later half of the 1400s) to 1650. ... North American English is a collective term used for the varieties of the English language that are spoken in the United States and Canada. ... The states of New England are Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. ... The Boston accent is the dialect of English not only of the city of Boston itself, but more generally of all of eastern Massachusetts; it shares much in common with the accents of New Hampshire and Southern Maine. ... The variety of the English language spoken in the New York City and North Jersey region is often considered to be one of the most recognizable accents within American English. ... Norwich (pronounced variously Norritch, Norridge) is a city in East Anglia, in Eastern England, and the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. ... The West Country is an informal area of southwestern England, roughly corresponding to the administrative region South West England. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...

Lot-cloth split

The lot-cloth split is the result of a late seventeenth-century sound change that lengthened /ɒ/ to [ɒː] before voiceless fricatives, and also before /n/ in the word gone. In some accents, the lengthened [ɒː] was raised, merging with the /ɔː/ of words like thought. Words that entered the language later, or words that were used more in writing than speech, were often exempt from the lengthening, so that joss and Goth still have the short vowel. (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ...

As a result of the lengthening and raising, in the above-mentioned accents cross rhymes with sauce, and soft and cloth also have the vowel [ɔː]. Accents affected by this change include American English and, originally, RP, although today words of this group almost always have short [ɒ] in RP. American English (AmE) is the dialect of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ... Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language, sometimes defined as the educated spoken English of southeastern England. ...

The lengthening and raising generally happened before the fricatives /f/, /θ/ and /s/. In American English the raising was extended to the environment before [ŋ] and in a few words to the environment before [k, g] as well, giving pronunciations like /lɔŋ/ for long, /tʃɔklət/ for chocolate, and /dɔg/ for dog. Obviously, in accents of American English that are subject to the cot-caught merger, there is no difference between words that did and those that did not undergo the change.

In the varieties of American English that have the lot-cloth split, many words vary as to whether or not they have the cloth vowel. For example, words that end in -og like frog, hog, fog, log, bog etc. have the cloth vowel in some accents with the lot-cloth split and the lot vowel in other accents with the split. American English (AmE) is the dialect of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ...

The word gone usually has the cloth vowel in accents with the lot-cloth split, but has the lot vowel in accents of New York and New Jersey which have the split. Official language(s) None, English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 27th 141,205 km² 455 km 530 km 13. ... Official language(s) None defined, English de facto Capital Trenton Largest city Newark Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 47th 22,608 km² 110 km 240 km 14. ...

The word on is usually pronounce with the lot vowel, but has the cloth vowel in the Midland, Mid-Atlantic and South.

Cot-caught merger

On this map of the U.S. and southern Canada, the areas enclosed in green are where most speakers have completely merged the vowels of cot and caught. The areas enclosed in blue are where there is most resistance to the merger. Unenclosed areas are where speakers are transitional or inconsistent, or for which there are insufficient data. Based on Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 122)

The cot-caught merger (also known as the low back merger) is a phonemic merger, a sound change, that occurs in some varieties of English. The merger occurs in some accents of Scottish English (Wells 1982, 400) and to some extent in Mid Ulster English (Wells 1982, 443), but is best known as a phenomenon of many varieties of North American English. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (881x574, 244 KB) Summary On this map of the U.S. and southern Canada, the areas enclosed in green are where most speakers have completely merged the vowels of cot and caught. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (881x574, 244 KB) Summary On this map of the U.S. and southern Canada, the areas enclosed in green are where most speakers have completely merged the vowels of cot and caught. ... Phonemic differentiation is the phenomenon of a phoneme in a language splitting into two phonemes over time, a process known as a phonemic split. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Scottish English is taken by some to include Scots and by others to exclude it. ... Mid Ulster English (Ulster Anglo-Irish) is the dialect of most people in Ulster, including those in the two main cities. ... A variety of a language is a form that differs from other forms of the language systematically and coherently. ... North American English is a collective term used for the varieties of the English language that are spoken in the United States and Canada. ...

The sound change causes the vowel in words like cot, rock, and doll to be pronounced the same as the vowel in the words caught, talk, law, and small, so that for example cot and caught become homophones, and the two vowel classes become merged as a single phoneme. This sound change appears to have begun at some time in the nineteenth century. A folk etymology of the expression O.K., which holds that it stands for oll korrect, a joke misspelling of all correct, suggests that the merger may have begun to take root in North America by the 1830s, when this explanation for the expression was first attested. The presence of the merger and its absence are both found in many different regions of the continent, and in both urban and rural environments. Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Homonyms (in Greek homoios = identical and onoma = name) are words which have the same form (orthographic/phonetic) but unrelated meaning. ... In human language, a phoneme is a set of phones (speech sounds or sign elements) that are cognitively equivalent. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Folk etymology (or popular etymology) is a linguistic term for a category of false etymology which has grown up in popular lore, as opposed to one which arose in scholarly usage. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A joke is a short story or short series of words spoken or communicated with the intent of being laughed at or found humorous by the listener or reader. ... Events and Trends Electromagnetic induction discovered by Michael Faraday Dutch-speaking farmers known as Voortrekkers emigrate northwards from the Cape Colony Croquet invented in Ireland Railroad construction begins in earnest in the United States Egba refugees fleeing the Yoruba civil wars found the city of Abeokuta in south-west Nigeria...

The symbols traditionally used to transcribe the vowels in the words "cot" and "caught" as spoken in American English are [ɑ] open back unrounded vowel and [ɔ] open-mid back rounded vowel, respectively, but recent sociolinguistic phonetics research has shown that for many American English speakers, the vowels are actually closer to the cardinal vowels [a] open mid unrounded vowel and [ɒ] open back rounded vowel. The precise phonetic value of the merged vowel varies from region to region, as do the phonetic values of the unmerged vowel in regions where the merger has not occurred. American English (AmE) is the dialect of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... Vowel sound produced when the tongue is in an extreme position, either front or back, high or low. ... The open central unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... Phonetic (pho-NET-ic) is a nationwide voicemail-to-text messaging service available for most digital mobile phones in which a subscriber is provided a custom voice mailbox for the purpose of receiving all incoming voice messages as actual transcribed text for reading via short messaging (also known as SMS...

According to Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 58-65), the merger does not generally occur in the southern United States, along the American side of the Great Lakes region, or in the "Northeast Corridor" extended metropolitan region from New York City to Baltimore. It occurs in most forms of Canadian English, in the Boston, Massachusetts area (see Boston accent) and northeastern New England , and in the eastern Ohio River valley. From the Great Plains westward, except San Francisco, the merger is usual. The distribution of the merger is complex, even without taking into account the mobility of the American population; there are pockets of speakers with the merger in areas that lack it, and vice versa. There are areas where the merger has only partially occurred, or is in a state of transition. Labov et al.'s research is based on telephone surveys with subjects who grew up in the city where they lived at the time of the interview. The 2003 Harvard Dialect Survey, in which subjects did not necessarily grow up in the place they identified as the source of their dialect features, indicates that there are speakers of both merging and contrast-preserving accents throughout the country, though the basic isoglosses are almost identical to those revealed by Labov's 1996 telephone survey. Both surveys indicate that approximately 60% of American English speakers preserve the contrast, while approximately 40% make the merger. Southern United States. ... This article is about the group of North American lakes. ... Nickname: The Big Apple Official website: City of New York Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area Total 468. ... This article is about the city in the US state of Maryland. ... Canadian English (CaE) is the national variety of English used in Canada. ... Nickname: City on a Hill, Beantown, The Hub (of the Solar System), Athens of America Official website: www. ... The Boston accent is the dialect of English not only of the city of Boston itself, but more generally of all of eastern Massachusetts; it shares much in common with the accents of New Hampshire and Southern Maine. ... The states of New England are Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. ... Ohio River viewed from Liberty Hill in Ripley, Ohio. ... The Great Plains is the broad expanse of prairie which lies east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States of America and Canada, covering all or parts of the U.S. states of New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota and the... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ...

For merged speakers in Canada and most of the United States, the two sounds [ɑ] and [ɔ] are allophones; they often do not perceive differences in their usage, hear neither of them as a separate phoneme, and hear the distinct vowels used by speakers whose dialects do distinguish them as variations on the same vowel. They hear the broad A of British Received Pronunciation as the same, single vowel sound. But in Received Pronunciation, there are three sounds distinguished: the long /ɑː/ of cart, the long /ɔː/ of caught, and the short rounded /ɒ/ of cot. In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ... The trap-bath split is a vowel split that occurs mainly in southern varieties of English English, in the Boston accent, and in the Southern Hemisphere accents (Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English), by which the Early Modern English phoneme was lengthened in certain environments and ultimately merged... Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language, sometimes defined as the educated spoken English of southeastern England. ...

It should be noted that cot-caught merged speakers in northeastern New England still maintain a phonemic distinction between unrounded /aː/ and rounded /ɒː/, because in New England (unlike in Canada and the Western United States), the cot-caught merger occurred without the father-bother merger. Thus, although northern New Englanders pronounce both cot and caught as [kɒːt], they pronounce cart as [kaːt].

Labov et al. also reveal that about 15% of respondents have the merger before [n] but not before [t], so that Don and Dawn are homophonous, but cot and caught are not. A much smaller group (about 4%) has the reverse situation: cot and caught are homophonous but Don and Dawn are distinct.

See also

• Phonological history of the English language
• Phonological history of English vowels

Within each section, changes are in approximate chronological order. ... // Phonological history of the low front vowels æ-tensing Bad-lad split Trap-bath split Phonological history of the low back vowels Main article: Phonological history of the low back vowels Father-bother merger Lot-cloth split Cot-caught merger Phonological history of the high back vowels Foot-goose merger and...

References

• Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg (2006). The Atlas of North American English, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3110167468.
• Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22919-7 (vol. 1), ISBN 0-521-24224-X (vol. 2), ISBN 0-521-24225-8 (vol. 3)., pp. 136–37, 203–6, 234, 246–47

William Labov (born December 4, 1927) is a professor in the linguistics department of the University of Pennsylvania. ... John Christopher Wells, MA (Cantab), Ph. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Map of the Cambridgeshire area (1904) The city of Cambridge is an old English university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire. ... The headquarters of the Cambridge University Press, in Trumpington Street, Cambridge. ...

External links

• Map of the cot-caught merger from the 2003 Harvard Dialect Survey
• Map of the cot-caught merger from Labov's 1996 telephone survey
• Description of the cot-caught merger in the Phonological Atlas
• Map of the cot-caught merger before /n/ and /t/
• Chapter 13 of the Atlas of North American English, which discusses the "short-o" configuration of various American accents