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David Durian The Ohio State University

The “Canadian Shift” in the US Midland: Purely a Chain Shift? The Canadian Shift in Columbus, Part 2. David Durian The Ohio State University The Century of Language Change in Columbus, OH (CLCC) Project. Background.

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David Durian The Ohio State University

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  1. The “Canadian Shift” in the US Midland:Purely a Chain Shift?The Canadian Shift in Columbus, Part 2 David Durian The Ohio State University The Century of Language Change in Columbus, OH (CLCC) Project

  2. Background • In previous studies, two similar patterns of vowel shift have been reported in various areas located in the US West and Canada: • California Shift • Canadian Shift

  3. Background • Both involve the following components: • Close or merged realization of BOT (“short o”) and BOUGHT (“open o”) • Retraction and lowering of the nucleus of BAT ([ae]) • Retraction of BET ([E]) • Retraction of BIT ([I])

  4. Background • Recent studies suggest California Shift and Canadian Shift are essentially the same shift, minus the outcome form of the completion of the low back merger (Boberg, 2009; Grama & Kennedy, 2009) • In addition, other recent studies have found that some post-1950 born speakers in US Midland Cities are also engaging in Canadian Shift-like realization behaviors • Durian (2008)--Central Ohio--Midland systems show Canadian Shift • Bigham (2008)--Southern Illinois--Midland systems show California Shift • Considered together, the findings of these studies suggest: Canadian Shift= California Shift=Midland Shift tendencies described above • Canadian Shift used as term here, since it was the earliest name given to the Shift in the literature

  5. Questions Remaining Unanswered from the Previous Recent Studies • How does the Canadian Shift “work”? Is it purely a chain shift, or is it something else? • If “something else”, what kind of something else? • The findings of Boberg (2005) in Montreal raise the possibility that Canadian Shift may actually have two components: Parallel Shift + Chain Shift • Which direction are BET and BIT moving in the US Midland? Downward? Forward? Some combination?

  6. Observed Possible Trajectories of BET and BIT Discussed in Previous Studies BIT PUT BET BUT BAT BOT/BOUGHT [Canada] or BOT/BOUGHT [US W/M] “Classic chain shift” pattern--Primary movement of BET and BIT is downwards “Classic parallel shift” pattern--Primary movement of BET and BIT is backwards Diagonal pattern--Primary movement of BET and BIT is first backwards, then downwards

  7. Canadian Shift in Columbus • A post-World War II, middle class phenomenon in Columbus • Vowel systems of speakers born before 1945 show sparse evidence of Canadian Shift • Among speakers born after 1945, Canadian Shift tendencies are most robust among men, and appear to be increasing across generational cohorts • That is, younger male speakers (born post-1975) show stronger Canadian Shift tendencies than older males (born 1945-1970)

  8. Analysis of Speaker Systems Ongoing… • Today’s analysis highlights 12 representative normalized speaker vowel systems of middle class speakers from 4 generational cohorts, born during the years 1895-1990 • Today’s analysis based on larger data set of 40 speaker vowel systems • Still ongoing--full analysis will ultimately be based on 76 speaker vowel systems (Durian, forthcoming) • All speakers raised in the greater Columbus Metropolitan Area (Urban Core + Suburbs)

  9. Today’s 40 Speaker Population * Includes tape recorded data graciously provided to us by The Linguistic Atlas of the North Central States [LANCS], The Dictionary of American Regional English [DARE], The Ohio Historical Society [OHS], and Erik R. Thomas (North Carolina State University).

  10. Methods • All tokens extracted from casual interview style speech • Typical interview length 60 minutes • 10 tokens of each vowel class extracted from each speaker • All vowels measured from tokens occurring in environments which: • Did not occur before a nasal or /r/ or /l/ • Did not occur following /l/ or /r/ • Tokens included in the BAT class also exclude following velars • Data then normalized using the z-score technique (Lobanov, 1971) • Mean of 10 tokens’ normalized values used as plot points in all plots

  11. Vowel Plots • Vowel classes presented as diphthongs use: • A point extracted at 25% of the vowel’s duration to represent nuclei targets • A point extracted at 75% of the vowel’s duration to represent glide targets • Vowel classes presented as monophthongs use: • A point extracted at 50% of the vowels duration to represent nuclei (equivalent to using measurements taken at steady state) • Normalized values are plotted in z-score units (z-score as in standard deviation, not to be confused with “Z” as in BARK units)

  12. Multiple Speaker Comparison Plots Generation 1 2 3 4 Males Females Younger Older Nucleus Color

  13. BAT, BAN, and BAG in Columbus • As discussed in previous studies (e.g., Thomas, [1989]/1993, 2001; Hartman-Keiser, et al., 1997; Labov, Ash & Boberg, 2006) /ae/ shows raising pre-nasally (BAN) in Columbus • Although not shown in the plots today, all informants (continue to) show some degree of raising for BAN, regardless of generational group • With the exception of speakers showing continuous /ae/ systems, BAG typically shows similar raising or lowering behavior to BAT (see Labov, Ash & Boberg, 2006 for more details) • As with BAN, BAG is not shown in the following plots

  14. The Development of the Canadian Shift in Columbus During the 20th Century • As in Canada and the US West, Canadian Shift in Columbus appears to be initially triggered by close (partial merger) or merged realization of the BOT and BOUGHT classes • In addition, the reversal of the realization of the nucleus of BAT appears contemporaneously in Columbus vowel systems

  15. The Fall and Rise of BAT in Columbus During the 20th Century • BAT in pre-World War II born Columbus speaker vowel systems was quite often realized either as a falling diphthong [Eae] or, less often, as a diphthong showing mild “Southern Breaking” tendencies [aeEae] (Durian, Forthcoming) • Among post-World War II born speakers, BAT becomes increasingly realized as a rising diphthong [aeE], especially among middle class speakers (Durian, Forthcoming)

  16. merged

  17. close- most frequent outcome in our data set

  18. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  19. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female Generation 1 Generation 4

  20. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  21. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  22. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  23. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  24. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  25. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  26. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female ( )

  27. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  28. Generation 4 Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female Generation 1

  29. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  30. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  31. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  32. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  33. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  34. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  35. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  36. Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

  37. Generally Similar to Men Across Time Generation M F1 2 3 4 Male Female

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