Dawgs

[Jonathan Lighter]

I'm as rhotic as a native New Yorker can get, but the sauce/source merger sounds almost inevitably true for some speakers.

  I may, in fact, be one of those people "leveled" by radio and TV.

  No kidding. I can recall cultivating "r"s in first and second grade because I wanted to sound more like Gene Autrey.  Most of my classmates, IIRC, were much less rhotic.

  JL

  Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Paul Johnston

Subject: Re: Dawgs
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Yes--if we take "tenseness" = " peripherality". Some reports
(Labov?) suggest a near-merger of sauce/source with the V1 of the
first one less "tense' or peripheral. I can't check it with my
speech as I'm rhotic, but if I imitate it, it sounds like possible NYC.

Paul Johnston
On Oct 26, 2006, at 2:59 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: Dawgs
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>
> That sounds about right, Paul. Is "tenseness" not factor here ?
>
> JL
>
> Paul Johnston
wrote:
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> Poster: Paul Johnston
>
> Subject: Re: Dawgs
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>
> Ranges from a raised backwards-c long monophthong (in careful
> speech), through a diphthong starting with this vowel and going to
> schwa (thus, [O@]), through [o@] to [U@]. V1's are slightly
> centralized. I don't have a lengthened V1 in mine, but if I come out
> with a monophthongal variant, it's a long one. The stereotype is
> probably [U@].
>
> In a pattern that throws Midwesterners, I have this vowel in dog, but
> centralized script a (+ or - following schwa) in all other -og words.
>
> Paul Johnston
>
>
> On Oct 26, 2006, at 2:12 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
>> Subject: Re: Dawgs
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -
>> ---------
>>
>> How does one indicate the notorious NYC "dawg," also heard in
>> "cawfee"?
>>
>> It's extra tense, I think. Not elongated, though.
>>
>> JL
>>
>> "Mark A. Mandel" wrote:
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>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: "Mark A. Mandel"
>> Subject: Re: Dawgs
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -
>> ---------
>>
>> Bev wrote:
>>>>>
>> Actually, I'll modify my vowel a bit: In this area, at least, the
>> core
>> vowel is midway between /a/ and /O/, the so-called "turned script a".
>> <<<
>>
>> Cardinal "turned script a" is low back rounded: same jaw and tongue
>> position
>> as "script a", but with lip rounding. Is that what you mean?
>> http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/vowels.html
>>
>> m a m
>>
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