Back Vowel Phonemes

[Dennis R. Preston]

Terry,

If you are assuming a Labovian paradigm, then the "historical" class of the
vowel gets first consideration. As the two merge, however, I wonder if you
are not overdoing the necessity of assignment? Perhaps if you took all
tokens of both (remembering environmental influences of course) and showed
their "different" disptribution in younger speakers (opposed to old South
Midlanders like me [Louisville] who have them quite distinct), wouldn't
youn have done the task? (Remember, Labov also said (something) like "Once
you know how to code your data, you've solved the prpblem.")

To be more direct, hwoever, an old-time Kentuckian like me (without a hint
of merger) has them as:

dog=)
lost=)
horror=)
on=)
upon=)
water=a
wash=) (with "intrusive r")
wash = a (without "intrusive r")

Best,

dInIs (who recently found that his vowels [with exception such as E-I
conflation before nasals] match Peterson and Barney nearly perfectly)

PS: Idolectal class-swapping is, however, common, even in those with clean
separation. I seem to have a rule which says /a/-/)/ before 'g' is /)/ if I
learned the word as a kid (dog, hog, log, frog, ...) but /a/ (or variably
/)/) for "learned" words (togs, cog, bog, smog, ...). (I know, some of the
words are only "learned" for guys from Louisville; don't write in!).


>I am currently working on a project that involves acoustic analysis of
>low back vowels in a regional variety of English.  As I move toward
>plotting of F1/F2 values, using a Labovian approach, I need to make some
>decisions regarding how to treat a subset of my data phonemically.
>
>All of the tokens vary, of course, but I have been able to place several
>items clearly into the ) category phonemically and the a category
>phonemically.
>
>The following set also all vary (which is indicated in major
>dictionaries, such as AHDE Edition 1):
>
>dog, lost, horror, on, upon, water, wash
>
>My query is, what vowel would you consider to be the underlying phoneme
>in each case, ) or a?  (I know, I know, choice of phoneme may depend upon
>idiolect, but remember that I am assuming a Labovian paradigm to
>facilitate one approach to studying change.)
>
>
>
>
>Virtually, Terry
>(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)
>Terry Lynn Irons        t.irons at morehead-st.edu
>Voice Mail:             (606) 783-5164
>Snail Mail:             UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351
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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