California fronting*

[Dennis R. Preston]

Hmmmm. I don't find this for the cool pronunciuation of cool at all. What I
find which distinguishes the cool from the unhip is a lowered and laxed
pronunciation  of cool (eventually making cool and cull almost
homophonous). Of course, none of these vowels are likely to be fronted
since they come before /l/, a well known inhibitor to F2 increase (i.e.,
fronting). Other /u/, /U/, and /o/ vowels, not before /l/, seem to be
fronting radically, not only in the so-called Southern Shift, but also in
the youth-culture California fronting referred to earlier (where youth
culture means anybody under forty some-odd).

dInIs, who is so old that his thermal and evaluative senses are homophonous



>And, of course, the pronunciation of "cool" (evaluative, not thermal!) with
>exaggerated initial fronting that is spelled "kewl". What are the earliest
>citations for that?
>
>
>-- Mark
>
>* Supply the sounds of The Mamas and the Papas as background to the subject
>line.

Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736