vowels...

[Beverly Flanigan]

Yes, these (near-) mergers are common in southern Ohio too; I got a 3-way
merger of pool/pole/pull to pull in some people (vs. only 2-way in others,
but variably merging to /U/ or to /^/).  I haven't personally tested
bull/bowl, but I suspect it follows the same pattern.  These 2- vs. 3-way
mergers have been described for our area by others, by the way, most
notably by Hankey (1972) and Thomas (1989, 1996).

At 07:05 PM 5/2/00 +0100, you wrote:
>on 2/5/00 6:00 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>
> > Actually, no, this isn't an example of the Southern Vowel Shift; rather,
> > it's one of many mergers going on in the Midland, the West (as David Bowie
> > said) and, to some extent, in the South.  Thus, hail and hell merge to hell
> > (vs. the Southern Shift diphthongizing of hell to hail), fill and feel
> > merge to fill, still and steel merge to still, pool and pull merge to pull,
> > etc.
>
>I'm curious.  Does anybody merge _bull_ and _bowl_, _pull_ and _pole_ (I
>forget if I've asked this before some years ago)?  I know I make such a
>merger, and I attributed it to the /l/).  But I seem to have a different
>merger than the rest of the West.... and I had this merger *before* I moved
>to Scotland (where they don't distinguish _look_ from _Luke_ regardless of a
>following /l/).
>
>--Aaron
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>Aaron E. Drews                               The University of Edinburgh
>http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~aaron      Departments of English Language and
>aaron at ling.ed.ac.uk                    Theoretical & Applied Linguistics
>
>  "MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF"
>   --Death


_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm