Dueling dialects

[Dennis R. Preston]

Are you sure this is not the well-known southern shift of /aw/ to
/aew/ with r-coloration of the resulting vowel (often somewhat
monophthongized in southern speech)?

dInIs

>  >
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       David Bergdahl <einstein at FROGNET.NET>
>>  Subject:      Re: Dueling dialects
>>  --------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Ed (from SE PA/Philly) wrote:
>>
>>  No way, the classical 3-way distinction was: Mary [e],
>>  merry [@], marry [ae]. Any other pronunciation is
>>  barbaric :)
>>
>>  so merry = Murray??
>>
>>  4-way splitting David from Valley Stream, LI, NY
>>
>
>Maury County, TN is pronounced halfway between "merry" and "Murray", maybe a
>little closer to "Murray".
>Blount County, TN is "blunt".


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
        Asian and African Languages
Wells Hall A-740
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
Office: (517) 353-0740
Fax: (517) 432-2736