Canadian raising

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 06:32 PM 8/12/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>In a message dated 8/12/02 10:07:38 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>flanigan at OHIOU.EDU writes:
>
>
> > We have "Canadian" raising all through Minnesota, with the /au/ as in
> > "about"--> 'aboot' stronger the farther north you go but the /ay/ as in
> > "right/night" rhyming with "kite" common throughout the state (and in me).
>
>Maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but are you suggesting that  Canadian
>Raisers have a phonemic split between 'right' and 'kite'? I thought both
>of these word classes were subject to raising and that the relevant
>conditioning was voicing so that prevoiced /ay/  (e.g., ride) was not raised.

No, I didn't mean to suggest a phonemic split--sorry if that came
across.  Voicing is indeed the key for us raisers: right/night/kite are all
raised (or centralized to wedge + glide), while ride/side/abide are not.