Fronted high back vowel /u/

Gordon, Matthew J. GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU
Mon Dec 21 19:06:30 UTC 2009 

I think that usually some rounding is retained when fronted so it might be close to a /y/ or the barred-u (= u with the line through it).


On 12/21/09 12:32 PM, "Tom Zurinskas" <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

To hear these sounds in three different voices go to the vowel sound chart at  http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter1/wells/wells.html
But "high" back is not given - just "back".

What symbol does a "fronted /u/ when saying "food" take from the diagram above so I can hear it?  Or just give me a word in thefreedictionary.com that has that vowel sound.


Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
see truespel.com phonetic spelling




> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Tony Au
> Subject: Re: Fronted high back vowel /u/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Just an anecdote, but I've always noticed a friend of mine (Inland Northern
> speaker) has a very fronted /u/ in "food"
>
> Tony
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 11:41 PM, Herb Stahlke wrote=
> :
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Herb Stahlke
>> Subject: Re: Fronted high back vowel /u/
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> I sing in a community choir in Anderson, IN, and direct a church choir
>> nearby, and /u/-fronting is very widespread in this area. It causes
>> problems for choral conductors, who end up spending valuable rehearsal
>> time fixing choral diction problems like this.
>>
>> Herb
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 10:16 PM, Randall Gess
>> wrote:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Randall Gess
>>> Subject: Re: Fronted high back vowel /u/
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>>
>>> I wonder if there is any data on fronting after non-coronals. The word
>>> I heard it in was "movie".
>>>
>>>
>>> Language: Defining dreams for millennia.
>>>
>>> Randall Gess
>>> Professor and Director
>>> School of Linguistics and Language Studies
>>> 215 Paterson Hall, Carleton University
>>> 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa ON K1S 5B6
>>> Tel: (613) 520-6612 Fax: (613) 520-6641
>>> Email: randall_gess at carleton.ca
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
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>>> privileged and may contain confidential information intended only for
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>>> recipient or have received this message in error, please notify
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>>> Privacy Act and appreciates your cooperation in this matter.
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>>>
>>> On 20-Dec-09, at 9:20 PM, Gordon, Matthew J. wrote:
>>>
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>> Poster: "Gordon, Matthew J."
>>>> Subject: Re: Fronted high back vowel /u/
>>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>>>
>>>> My statement was based on my recollection of what Labov and
>>>> colleagues reported in the Atlas of North America English. Notice
>>>> that I didn't claim that every person in every part of the country
>>>> outside of the Inland North has fronting of these vowels. I said
>>>> that this pattern was found (i.e. could be heard from some speakers)
>>>> there.
>>>>
>>>> To check my recollection, I took a look at the ANAE's findings (map
>>>> 10.24, p. 101) on fronting of /u/ following coronals (the
>>>> environment most conducive to fronting). They report fronting in at
>>>> least one speaker from the following states:
>>>> Alaska, Washington, California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, So. Dakota,
>>>> Nebraska, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma,
>>>> Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Penn.,
>>>> Michigan, Kentucky, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Conn., No.
>>>> Carolina, So. Carolina, Tenn., Arkansas, Louisiana, Miss., Alabama,
>>>> Georgia, Florida.
>>>>
>>>> That's just the speakers with the most extreme fronting (normalized
>>>> F2> 1950 Hz). If you include those with moderate fronting (F2>
>>>> 1800 Hz), you pick up speakers in Oregon, Nevada, West Virginia, as
>>>> well as several New England states.
>>>>
>>>> -Matt Gordon
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>>>> Wilson Gray [hwgray at GMAIL.COM]
>>>> Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2009 6:23 PM
>>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>> Subject: Re: Fronted high back vowel /u/
>>>>
>>>> "Fronting of /u/ (and /o/) is found pretty much everywhere in the US
>>>> except for the Inland North (e.g. the Great Lakes region)."
>>>>
>>>> "*Pretty much everywhere* in the US except for the Inland North"? A
>>>> claim hard to support, unless you've been pretty much everywhere.
>>>>
>>>> When I first read of the existence of this sound shift in the intro to
>>>> linguistics by the late Fr. Dineen, SJ, of Georgetown, I was totally
>>>> shocked, since his statement, like yours, gives the impression that
>>>> this is a feature of al dialects of US English. One of D's examples
>>>> was "newn" [niun] for "noon." This and pronunciations like "skewl" for
>>>> "school" are certainly common, if not standard, among white
>>>> Southerners at least as far west as Abilene, TX. But, till I had
>>>> occasion to live in the Northeast, I had no idea that this oddity
>>>> existed anywhere else. But then, you have in mind only white speakers,
>>>> right? And, even among white speakers, such speakers along the Left
>>>> Coast are not being included, no doubt.
>>>>
>>>> However, I'm still waiting to hear it used generally from coast to
>>>> coast, as, e.g. [nu:] for "new" is. (Not that [nIu] has become
>>>> obsolete. *Many* people still use it.)
>>>>
>>>> Of course, I may have run completely off the rails, here, in
>>>> attempting to take you to task about this. Sound-change is pretty
>>>> unpredictable. In my lost youth, the pronunciation of, e.g. "now" as
>>>> "naow" [n&u] and not as [nau] was *absolutely* not used by BE
>>>> speakers, except *very* rarely in mockery of SE speakers. (E.g. there
>>>> was once a popular version of the song, Temptation, recorded by one
>>>> "Cinderella G. Stump," which was done in a mockery of white, mountain
>>>> speech. It was also popular 'mongst us cullud chirren, though we had
>>>> no idea that it was supposed to be a put-down, Saint Louis being such
>>>> a speech-island, back in the day, that we didn't know that there
>>>> existed people who really did speak more-or-less that way. Nowadays,
>>>> I'd be hard put to find a BE speaker younger than fifty or so who
>>>> still uses [nau] and not [n&u]. If it wasn't for being able to listen
>>>> to my old blues and R&B records, I might even begin to doubt my own
>>>> memory that [nau] was ever used by anyone outside of my own family.
>>>>
>>>> Once upon a time, the glo?al stop was so rare that I knew only a
>>>> single individual who used it in his ordinary speech, whether
>>>> monitored or unmonitored. I occasionally wondered whether he might
>>>> have a speech defect. Nowadays, the glo?al stop is virtually a marker
>>>> of hiphop/rap speech, and is slowly creeping into other forms of
>>>> speech, based on what I hear on The Judges.
>>>>
>>>> -Wilson
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 12:25 PM, Gordon, Matthew J.
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>> Poster: "Gordon, Matthew J."
>>>>> Subject: Re: Fronted high back vowel /u/
>>>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>>>>
>>>>> This sounds like pretty classic Southern Shift: back vowel fronting
>>>>> + raising of /E/ and /I/. The only thing odd would be the direction
>>>>> of the glide. When diphthongal, the lax vowels in the SoShift
>>>>> usually have central/schwa offglides if I recall correctly.
>>>>>
>>>>> Fronting of /u/ (and /o/) is found pretty much everywhere in the US
>>>>> except for the Inland North (e.g. the Great Lakes region).
>>>>>
>>>>> -Matt Gordon
>>>>> ________________________________________
>>>>> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
>>>>> Of Randall Gess [randall_gess at CARLETON.CA]
>>>>> Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2009 8:38 AM
>>>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>>> Subject: Fronted high back vowel /u/
>>>>>
>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm new to the list. I've just started doing volunteer work on
>>>>> occasion for a victim identification unit of law enforcement. I
>>>>> have a
>>>>> recording with a male North American speaker that has a rather
>>>>> fronted /u/ sound (F1 395, F2 1816), in the word 'movie'. I've heard
>>>>> this kind of fronting before, but does anyone know how widespread it
>>>>> is geographically? The /E/ in leg is also a bit raised at F1 550, F2
>>>>> 1942 and slightly diphthongized toward /ei/, but this is not as
>>>>> pronounced as I've heard in some accents. Does anyone know where
>>>>> these
>>>>> features might co-occur?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks
>>>>>
>>>>> Randall
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Language: Defining dreams for millennia.
>>>>>
>>>>> Randall Gess
>>>>> Professor and Director
>>>>> School of Linguistics and Language Studies
>>>>> 215 Paterson Hall, Carleton University
>>>>> 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa ON K1S 5B6
>>>>> Tel: (613) 520-6612 Fax: (613) 520-6641
>>>>> Email: randall_gess at carleton.ca
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> The information in this message, including any attachments, is
>>>>> privileged and may contain confidential information intended only for
>>>>> the person(s) named above. Any other distribution, copying or
>>>>> disclosure is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended
>>>>> recipient or have received this message in error, please notify
>>>>> Carleton University immediately by reply email at the contact listed
>>>>> above and permanently delete the original transmission from us,
>>>>> including any attachments, without making a copy. Carleton University
>>>>> is fully compliant with the Freedom of Information and Protection of
>>>>> Privacy Act and appreciates your cooperation in this matter.
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> -Wilson
>>>> =E2=80=93=E2=80=93=E2=80=93
>>>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"=E2=80=93=E2=80=93a stra=
> nge complaint to
>>>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>>> =E2=80=93Mark Twain
>>>>
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>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>
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>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
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>>>
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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