Keywords

BEG vs. BAG raising patterns, phonological and morphological effects, word-internal variation study

Abstract

Hypotheses

  1. Based on my exceptions, BEG-raising is less common when it is followed by a sonorant.
  2. BEG- and BAG-raising have different patterns.

Phonological Effects

  • No difference between intervocalic /ɡ/ and word-final /ɡ/.
  • For BEG only, significantly less raising before sonorants, particularly liquids.

Morphological Effects

  • Adding –s was had a negligible effect for both vowels.
  • There was more raising reported after adding –ing.
  • For BAG only, there was more raising in words with –ed.

Conclusions

Many language-internal factors:

  • Despite relatively few words with BEG and BAG, there are phonological, morphological, and lexical effects.
  • A small word list may not have captured all this.
  • (For regional and other sociolinguistic patterns, see my ADS presentation in January.)

BEG and BAG are different:

  • BEG is raised less when followed by a sonorant and raised more in borrowings.
  • BAG is raised more when –ed is added, and in more frequent words.

Limitations:

  • Survey data (and variable reference words) is unreliable.
  • Absolutely need acoustic data to confirm these patterns

Big picture:

  • Even infrequent linguistic variables are interesting.
  • Include more words and in more environments in word lists.
  • Reddit is a great way to get a lot of data fast.

Original Publication Citation

Joseph A. Stanley. “The differences between and within beg and bag: Phonological, morphological, and lexical effects in prevelar raising.” Poster presentation New Ways of Analyzing Variation 47. New York City, New York. October 18–21, 2018.

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

2018

Publisher

New Ways of Analyzing Variation

Language

English

College

Humanities

Department

Linguistics

University Standing at Time of Publication

Assistant Professor

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