Low Back /a/ to Low Central /a/

[Herb Stahlke]

Let add to that.  Why does he list "open-o" as the vowel in words like "caught" which in those American dialects that still have a rounded vowel there is a low back rounded, not mid lax back rounded.  Also, why does he use schwa for both schwa and tent?  "above" has both of them, and while schwa is in complementary distribution with tent, it's also in complementary distribution with every other vowel in the language.  When I teach that text, which I do nearly every semester, that is the one thing I consistently have to work around.

Herb Stahlke
Ball State University

<<< MAVINSON5 at AOL.COM  5/27  3:42p >>>
Does anyone know why Algeo made the change of low back /a/ to central back
/a/ in the latest edition of the Origins text?  It seems that in Southern
English /a/ as in mama/papa [mam/pap] is more low/back as in "aw"--the one
Algeo used to call rounded (another term deleted as is spread))--than
low/central as in mahmuh?

Mark