Back Vowel Phonemes

[Breland, Mary Beth]

My reply is a little behind because I get the list in digest form.

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?>

In my opinion you aren't considering enough phonemes.  My opinion is based
on growing up in Mississippi.

dog = )
lost = )
horror = a
on = o
upon = schwa in both syllables
water = a,   but my 95 year old grandmother uses )
wash = a

Mary Beth Breland
Assistant Professor of English
English Department Chair
Hannibal-LaGrange College
2800 Palmyra Road
Hannibal, MO 63401
mbreland at hlg.edu
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