Back Vowel Phonemes

[Anne Lambert]

What is meant by "all you folks who still pronounce a diphthong"?  Is there
monophthongation somewhere?  Incidentally, I pronounce like Mike.

"Aaron E. Drews" wrote:

> TERRY IRONS wrote:
>
> >
> > 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 would agree with dInIs when he said:
>
> > If you are assuming a Labovian paradigm, then the "historical" class of the
> > vowel gets first consideration.
>
> Since I have a merged vowel for this region, I've had to learn to draw
> on the orthography to help me decipher what would be the "proper"
> phonemic category.  So, <aw>, <au>, etc. are the ) vowel evidenced by
> some folks who still pronounce a diphthong.  The /a/ vowel is
> represented by <a> and <o>, with a couple of exceptions.  The first five
> on your list fall into this /a/ category.
>
> When <a> or <o> are preceded by <w> (or even /w/), the rounding of the
> dubya supposedly rounds and raises the following vowel.  If I remember
> correctly, these vowels are ) phonemically, although since the vowel is
> in a predictable position, I would question that.  This category fits
> the last two on your list.
>
> The <o> and <a> also become ) before nasal+obstuent clusters and before
> voiceless anterior fricatives in some varieties of American (the same
> environment as the _can_~_can't_ distinction in RP).  The raising and
> rounding of the vowel in these two environments isn't entirely
> consistent, so the predictable realization is more a rule of thumb
> rather than a hard-and-fast phonological rule.  For that reason, it is
> generally assumed that the underlyer is /)/.
>
> I think I'm regurgitating a lot of Wells, vol. 1 and bits of vol. 3.
> Those might be able to help you categorize the vowels.
>
> Of course, this is all in an ideal, static situation.
>
> --Aaron
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Aaron E. Drews                               The University of Edinburgh
> aaron at ling.ed.ac.uk                  Departments of English Language and
> http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~aaron       Theoretical & Applied  Linguistics
>
> Bide lang an fa fair                    Awa whair nae man has gaun afore