Back Vowel Phonemes

[Arnold Zwicky]

normally i wouldn't do this, but the original poster wanted to group
words into something like "historophonemes", and in this case i
think the vowel shifts and diffusions have spread from different
sources in different directions, in such a way that this sort of
grouping is no longer practicable.  there are dozens of patterns
for the distribution of /a/ and /)/ in different words.  here's
mine, with different vowels in ON and UPON:

dog = )
lost = )
horror = a
on = )
upon = a
water = )
wash = a
frog = a ~ ) (a predominant, i think)
  [cf. dog, and cog = a]
watch = a
swatch = a
toss = )

(southeastern pennsylvania, born 1940)

yet another pattern, i believe.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)