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English accents. 13. General American (cont.). r-coloured vowels. NURSE [3` ] first, third, occur, serve lettER [@`] gather, standard, persist. historically: short vowels fell together as / ə / before /r/ [ ə] and [r] coalesced as a single rhotacized vowel
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English accents 13. General American (cont.)
r-coloured vowels NURSE [3` ] first, third, occur, serve lettER [@`] gather, standard, persist • historically: • short vowels fell together as /ə/ before /r/ • [ə] and [r] coalesced as a single rhotacized vowel • (in non-rhotic accents) the rhotacization was lost
The THOUGHT vowel/ɔ/ • Variation in quality: generally opener than in BrE • In the CLOTH set as well as the THOUGHT set • Subject to an on-going merger with /ɑ/ LOT ("the low back merger") dawn-don, hawk-hock • Those who have not merged /ɔ/ and /ɑ/ have lexical variability in on, fog, sorry, wash
The TRAP-BATH vowel /æ/ With regional, social-stylistic and positional variation, subject to raising and tensing to [ɛː ~ eə ~ iə] jazz
The LOT vowel/ɑ/ • Subject to fronting to [a] ("Northern Cities Shift"), which protects it from the Low Back Merger found west of the Mississippi, in western Pennsylvania, in Canada etc.
The Northern Cities shift ʌSTRUT æTRAP ɔ THOUGHT ɑLOT
… also, the lowering and centralization of /ɪ/ (KIT) and /ɛ/ (DRESS) KIT DRESS STRUT THOUGHT TRAP LOT