Phonetic shift /ɔr/ phonemic change? American English mergers over 40 years

Authors

Joseph A. Stanley, Brigham Young UniversityFollow
Margaret E. L. Renwick, University of Georgia

Keywords

phonemic change, amarican English, vowels

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the vowel formants of a speaker over four decades to show phonemic change through time. Other real-time studies (Harrington, Palethorpe & Watson 2000; Harrington & Reubold 2015) have found that the vowel spaces of UK English speakers shift over the lifetime, likely as a consequence of interaction with speakers of other dialects or social classes. We focus on an understudied variety of English, spoken in the western United States, to investigate a pair of phonological mergers, the cord-card merger and the hoarse-horse merger.

BYU ScholarsArchive Citation

Stanley, Joseph A. and Renwick, Margaret E. L., "Phonetic shift /ɔr/ phonemic change? American English mergers over 40 years" (2016). Faculty Publications. 6113.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/6113

Document Type

Conference Paper

Publication Date

2016-7

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/8842

Language

English

College

Humanities

Department

Linguistics

University Standing at Time of Publication

Assistant Professor

Copyright Use Information

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/