Talk:Phonological history of English open back vowels/Archive 2

Father-bother merger

Wow...what a confusing article. After I've cot some sleep in my caught, I'll try to wrap my head around it. In any case: I noticed there are only 98 google hits for "father-bother merger", and most of them seem to be WP mirrors or blogs referring to this WP article. I was trying to find more information (since I can't detect any difference in those two vowels), but nothing independent came up. Is there another name for this concept "in the literature"?

Not that I know of (except "bother-father merger", which gets even fewer hits). In Accents of English John C. Wells explains that it was actually a two-stage process: first "LOT unrounding" (where [ɒ] gets unrounded to [ɑ], followed by the loss of distinctive length, resulting in the merger of [ɑ] with [ɑː]. Some accents have LOT unrounding but no loss of distinctive length, so there is no merger. Nevertheless, even though the term "father-bother merger" is rare, the literature I know of uses "father" and "bother" as example words almost exclusively, so it's a good name. —Angr 08:51, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Distribution of father-bother merger

I've never heard of New York making this distinction. The Wikipedia article on New York English doesn't mention it. I think this misconception might come from the fact that there is a chain shift in the low back vowels that raises the vowel of bother into the space of the vowel in caught, which means that it is rounded. However, father moves into the same space, so 'cart' and 'cot' are not distinguished (by non-rhotic speakers). Makerowner 23:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

According to the Atlas of North American English (p. 171), "in New York City, many speakers also retain the distinction between these two word classes, but here father is further back and higher than bother." This suggests that for non-rhotic NYC speakers, cart is [kɑ̝t] (or maybe [kɑ̝ːt] but they don't mention vowel length) while cot is [kɑ̈t]. —Angr 02:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I just read that a few days ago, and I'm a little confused. The Wikiedia article doesn't mention this, and I have to say I've never noticed it (though I do not live in New York and am by no means an expert). I've just never seen anything else that said this. Makerowner 05:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I've sort of indirectly noticed it. I remember watching Rosie O'Donnell's talk show many years ago and hearing her talk about Clark bars. Although she didn't actually use the words "Clark" and "clock" in the same sentence, I remember thinking that the way she said "Clark" ([klɑːk] or even slightly diphthongized [klɑək]) could never mistaken for "clock"; for one thing, the vowel was too long to be the "short o" before a voiceless consonant. If there's no mention of it in the article on New York City English, it should be added. —Angr 10:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Lot-Cloth

>>The word gone usually has the cloth vowel in accents with the lot-cloth split, but has the lot vowel in accents of New York and New Jersey which have the split<<

Is this true? I am from New York but pronounce "gone" with LAW (not LOT). I also pronounce "on" with LAW, but other words in "on" have LOT ("don" "Agamemnon", even "upon"). Of course, my pronunciation may not be typical of the region.

>>words that end in -og like frog, hog, fog, log, bog etc. have the cloth vowel in some accents with the lot-cloth split and the lot vowel in other accents with the split.<<

I think this could be rephrased to make clearer the fact that all these words do not necessarily behave as a unit. For example, in my accent, "dog" alone has LAW, the others having LOT.

>>Lot-cloth split<< Is this even a split? It isn't the case that a new opposition was created, but rather that some words changed over from one vowel to another vowel THAT WAS ALREADY IN THE SYSTEM. The term "split" is usually used when a new opposition is created in the system.--Gheuf 05:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I too thought that gone had the THOUGHT vowel in all American accents that maintain the cot/caught distinction. On, on the other hand, is famous among American dialectologists for being split between the THOUGHT vowel in the South and Midland and the LOT vowel in the North. (I'm surprised you have the THOUGHT vowel in on if you're from NYC -- did both you and your parents grow up there?) —Angr 06:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Caught in the cot-caught merger

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and have live in California most of my life. The claim that "cot" and "caught" have completely merged in California is nonsense. In fact the raw data refutes the claim. That map shows nearly half of Californians pronounce them differently.

I'm not saying we talk in a Coffee Talk accent where the phonemes are very distinct; in fact they sound almost the same. In a sentence where the distinction is important, it probably would not be heard. It varies with the surrounding sounds (of course), so "tall" and "doll" are nearly perfect rhymes. However, I consistently pronounce "caught", "tall", "law", etc with a vowel that is lower and farther back than the vowel in "cot", "rock", and "mob".

The realization that "o" can be a higher fronter vowel than "a" is messing with my head.— Randall Bart 01:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The data in the map you linked to above is very different from the data the map on the page is based on. The map on the page is based on the Atlas of North American English by William Labov et al., which itself is based on telephone surveys conducted in the 1990s. These telephone surveys did not pick a random sample of the population; it targeted people who were genuinely "locals", who lived in the same city where they were born and where their parents had grown up. The map you linked to above is based on self-reporting from anyone who wanted to answer and provides no indication of where the people may have grown up. Sure there are lots of red dots in California on that map, but how many of them are from people whose families are from the city where they currently live? Is yours? —Angr 05:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

on the merged cot/caught vowel [ɑ]/[ɒ] in Canadian English

Although the Oxford Canadian Dictionary says that hockey is pronounced as ['hɒki] in both Canadian English and British English, this is not entirely accurate. The author of the Oxford Canadian Dictionary is an English lady living in Ottawa. And while it may be true that people from Ottawa have [ɒ] in hockey, the great majority of Canadians has an unrounded vowel here, thus: ['hɑki]. If you take a look at the ANAE sound map (http://www.mouton-online.com/anae.php) you can see that the merged cot/caught vowel is unrounded for most Canadians: [kɑt]; [kɒt] is used by some people, mainly those from Ottawa.

As for the dark L influence, "Ball" can be [bɑːɫ] in Atlantic Canada, especially Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but it can be pronounced like this in other parts of Canada as well, in Windsor (Ontario), for example. Some sound files:

Nova Scotia accent: http://youtube.com/watch?v=DK8FB7USprM

New Brunswick accent: http://youtube.com/watch?v=hYlltEFXRoY

Windsor accent: http://youtube.com/watch?v=euUyxaD5evc —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.172.45.70 (talk) 14:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

ANAE does not directly address rounding in so many words. However, it does say that the Canadian cot/caught vowel is within the phonetic range of most dialects' caught rather than most dialects' cot, and is backer and higher than any other cot. This seems to contradict your claim about what ANAE says about rounding in Canadian English. AJD (talk) 15:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

ANAE says CVS is absent in Atlantic Canada, so cot/caught vowel is still low and unrounded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.0.88.148 (talk) 10:12, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

"An idiot was heard sadly braying in the distance"

I am so very unobservant, and unfamiliar with phonology and the IPA, that while I know that I suffer from all these mergers, I don't know what the different vowel sounds sound like when spoken by a cultured person. If there is anyone else out there as dumb as me, perhaps they too could benefit from a sample sound file. —vivacissamamente 00:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah me too, I always caught and cot sounded (very nearly) the same. Amit@Talk 16:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

You're not "suffering" from anything or less "cultured" than someone whose speech does not exhibit these mergers. The article is very badly written and should explain clearly that dialects in which these mergers do not occur are not better and that they show other signs of "degeneration" (change) and exhibit other mergers than the dialects that exhibit the mergers described on this page. --Espoo (talk) 14:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Australian English

Australian English doesn't have the Father-bother merger, the lot-cloth split, or the cot-caught merger.

However, it does have the lot-gone split. Gone being a longer version of the "lot" sound. So to me they are four different sounds.

I have trouble believing that anyone could really confuse those sounds. Carl Kenner 14:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

audio files

(Especially) without audio files, this article is more or less useless and very confusing and perhaps even harmful to most users .

And as shown by some of the comments above, many/most users are also misled to believe that people whose speech does not exhibit these mergers are more educated. This shows that the article needs to be phrased completely differently or needs at least an introduction. --Espoo (talk) 14:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Overly inclusive statement

The sentence appears to go overboard in inclusiveness:

"The presence of the merger and its absence are both found in many different regions of the continent, and in both urban and rural environments."

The word "different" is of course redundant, and "both" is also redundant as the sentence stands, since saying that two things exist somewhere is the same as saying that they both exist there. The statement begs the questions of whether there are regions in which the absence of the merger might exist independently of its presence, how regions violate the rule, and how an environment can be "both urban and rural"! Unfree (talk) 13:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Other Places Where Cot and Caught Are Merged

On the Web site for the PBS show "Do You Speak American?", there are other places listed with the cot-caught merger that aren't shown in this article. Here's what it says about the merger:

It is very widespread across Canada and is also heard throughout the western U.S. The latter seems to be the source of its introduction into the Midwest as it appears to be spreading eastward. A recent survey directed by William Labov of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that the merger can be found today among younger generations (roughly people under 40) in Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. It is also heard across much of Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri. Similarly, the merger affects central portions of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, though its appearance in these areas may represent a westward expansion of the change from Pennsylvania.

I am going to list those places in this article. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 03:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The Cot-Caught Merger Is Much More Widespread

My personal experience tells me that the cot-caught merger is much more widespread in the U.S. than this article seems to say. I believe the majority of Americans have it now. I know personal experience doesn't matter on Wikipedia, but I just needed to say that. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 00:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Question on a symbol

I don't know how to type the special symbols, and I'm no language expert, but under the "lot-cloth" section there is a symbol used that consists of the backwards a followed by a colon. The IPA page lists no such symbol, is it the backwards c with a colon that is intended? Just wondering...Moopuppy (talk) 08:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The symbol [ɒː] stands for a vowel that has the quality of [ɒ] (the vowel in the RP pronunciation of "lot") but which is long, i.e. pronounced for about the same duration as [ɔː] (the vowel in the RP pronunciation of "thought"). —Angr 14:42, 15 February 2009 (UTC)