Back Vowel Phonemes

[Alice Faber]

At 2:46 PM +0800 9/18/2000, Laurence Horn wrote, ostensibly about Re:
Back Vowel Phonemes:
>At 1:14 PM -0500 9/18/00, Matthew Gordon wrote:
>>
>>In the North, I'd expect to find the following assignments:
>>dog = )
>>lost=)
>>horror=)
>>on=a
>>upon=a
>>water=)
>>wash=)
>>
>Well, for THIS northerner (more specifically, New Yorker), this is
>all as claimed except for "horror", which belongs to the (OR) class
>we've previously discussed (other members are "moral", "forest",
>"corridor", "orange") in which the vowel is closer to the [a] of "on"
>than to the [)] of "dog".  (This is the vowel that later became a
>variable for me after I left the NYC area, so that I now have these
>as either [a] or [)].)  Also, the vowel of "wash" is hard for me to
>pin down--it appears to be between [a] and [)], but it's definitely
>distinct from the clearly rounded back [)] of "water" or "lost".

For this New Yorker (despite stays in Texas, Florida, and now Connecticut):

dog )
lost )
horror a (not the same nucleus as moral, forest, etc, which vary for
me between a and OR)
on a
upon a
water )
wash a (= posh, mosh, hot, etc)
--
Alice Faber                                       tel. (203) 865-6163
Haskins Laboratories                              fax  (203) 865-8963
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