LELA 10082 Lecture 3

1. LELA 10082Lecture 3 Describing accents I

2. How accents differ • Want to talk in general about how to describe accents • We’ll apply today’s ideas to some case studies later • “Accents” means we’ll concentrate on phonetic aspects • To do this properly, you really need to be a good phonetician • Know your phonetic symbols • Have a really good ear • But even if not, you can still grasp the principles

3. How to approach the task? • Independent phonemic analysis (endocentric) • More “scientific”, but can be long-winded • Comparison with something else (probably RP) (exocentric) • More convenient, but … • Beware of false impressions: • That accent is derived from RP (may be vice versa, or accents are historically quite distinct) • That RP is better (cf last class: RP used to be prestigious, and certainly may influence changes in regional accents)

4. Differences between X and RP • Differences of phoneme system Additional phoneme distinctions; “missing” phonemes • Differences of distribution X and RP have equivalent phonemes, but the phonetic contexts in which they occur differ • Differences of incidence X and RP have equivalent phonemes, but in particular words, a different phoneme is chosen • Differences of realisation X and RP have equivalent phonemes, but the phonetic and/or allophonic realisation differs

5. Systematicity • Phoneme systems generally show some systematic patterns: this also applies to differences • Examples of systematicity in RP • Phonemes can be grouped • Allophones of voiceless stops • Vowels in long-short pairs

6. Phonemes can be grouped • Three places of articulation with voiced and voiceless stops and nasals: ptk/bdg/mnN • Fricatives/affricates also in voiced/voiceless pairs • Diphthongs • three/four centring (i,E,,u) • five closing of which three close to front (ei,ai,i) and two to back (au,ou)

7. Allophones of voiceless stops • /p,t,k/ • Aspirated word initially • Slightly aspirated syllable initial • But not aspirated after s- • Glottalized word finally • Ejective word finally for emphasis

8. Vowels in long-short pairs • Vowel phonemes are distinguished mainly by quality, but also by length • a~AI~i ~ ~u ~ (+ E~E or E~ei) • Qualitatively, long vowels are even longer before voiced consonants (eg course~cause) final or +voiced +nasal +voiceless Short vowels 17.2 13.3 10.3 Long vowels 31.9 23.3 16.5 Diphtongs 35.7 26.5 17.8 Length in csecs (from Gimson 1970)

9. 1. Differences in phoneme system • // generally absent in accents north of Severn-Wash “isogloss” • luck~look, putt~put, etc • hypercorrection • push, pull [pS, pl], butcher

10. 1. Differences in phoneme system • Scots doesn’t have three long-short distinctions • // = /u/ pull, pool • // = // caught, cot • /a/ = /A/ psalm, Sam • Three vowel phonemes where RP has six • Two are long (u,A) one short () • (heart~hat distinction affected by another difference – see later)

11. 1. Differences in phoneme system • “Rhotic” accents • Have /r/ pre-consonantal and word-final (see later) • don’t have centring diphthongs /i,E,,u/ • Have combination of vowel + /r/ instead • eg hear /hir/, bear /bEr/, floor /flr/, poor /pur/

12. 1. Differences in phoneme system • Scouse lack /E/~// distinction eg fair=fur • Scouse lack /D/ as in /di du du dunt di du/ • North Wales lack/z/ and /Z/ eg zinc=sink, zoo=Sue, face=phase, pleasure=/plES/ • Many accents lack /h/ • Some Irish accents lack /T/ and /D/, so three=tree, thick=tick, other=udder, path=Pat • Midlands and NorthN is not a phoneme, but an allophone of /n/ • Note eg hanging /haNgINg/, sing /sINg/ • [N] only occurs before /k/ and /g/, so can be analysed as allophone of /n/ • Be aware of implications of saying an accent “lacks” something

13. 1. Differences in phoneme system – additional phonemes • Accents which distinguish /w/~// witch~which • Scots has extra phoneme /i/ eg in tide ≠ tied • Scots has extra phoneme /x/ in technical, Brechin, loch, Buchan and for some speakers in bright, light, night • Welsh speakers of English have extra phoneme // though only in loan words (place names, eg Llangollen), so status as phoneme is debatable • London has extra phoneme // eg in door, bore, paw, law bored≠ board, paws ≠ pause • only occurs in morpheme-final position • note bored = bore+d, paws = paw+s

14. Differences seen as speech defects? • Some accents (or idiolects) lack /f/~/T/ contrast … generally viewed as showing lack of education, and something to be avoided; but cf Irish • A lisp is identified by a missing phoneme contrast /s/~/T/, and is viewed as a minor speech defect

15. 2. Differences of distribution • Phonemes are characterised by the contexts in which they can appear • Not all phonemes can appear in all contexts, eg • /h,j,w,r/ do not appear word-finally • consonant clusters with -r and -l limited to: • pr, br, tr, dr, kr, gr, fr, Tr, sr, Sr • pl, bl, *tl, *dl, kl, gl, fl, Tl, sl, Sl,

16. 2. Differences of distribution • /r/ in “rhotic” accents can occur after a vowel in word-final position (eg four, car) and pre-consonant position (bird, work) • Rhotic accents include Scots, Irish, most North American, SW England, N Lancs

17. 2. Differences of distribution • Final unstressed /I/ realised as /i/ in South, West, Wales, Scouse, Geordie (creeping into RP), eg studded≠studied, pitted ≠pitied, taxis ≠taxes, candid ≠candied • Scots word-final /I/ realsied as /e/ eglady /lede/, daily /dele/ • Norfolk no /j/ after labials pure=poor, mute=moot, beauty=booty, ? few /fu/, view /vu/

18. 2. Differences of distribution • Several accents no/j/ after /t,d,n,s,l,z,T/ tune, dune, nuclear, pursuit, lewd, resume, enthuse • Yorkshire voiceless assimilation at morpheme boundaries, eg Bradford /bratfd/, frogspawn /frkspn/ • Cockney /D/ becomes /v/ except initially: the bruvvers, they bave (‘bathe’), they like baving