more vowel weirdness

[Dennis R. Preston]

Careful of its widespreadedness. Its source at the yuppie places you
mention is almost certainly RP (although I'd be happy to hear of other
theories), but back-vowel fronting is rampant in the American South and,
with slightly different pohonetic details, "Valley Girl," the latter
spreading like wildfire to the East. All these similar shifts may be
bumping heads in some places.

dInIs


>If this is the feature I think you mean, I've noticed it from private school
>grads (Exeter, Andover, Lawrenceville, and others) as far back as the late
>70s.   A fronted first element-- almost as in RP. I always wondered how
>widespread it was.
>
>Dale Coye
>The College of NJ


Dennis R. Preston
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