Gone feeshin'

[Herb Stahlke]

Dennis,

That sounds like what's going on here, centralization and
unrounding.  Do you find it across social classes, or is it
restricted?  Muncie has a major dialect and socio-political divide
at the White River, which flows through the town east to west.
Put simplistically, South of the river is Appalachian and north is
Northern Midlands.  I find the unrounding only north of the
river.

Herb

>>> preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU 09/29/00 09:37AM >>>
Herb,

No, I mean the partial fronting (to a central position), usually
accompanied by unrounding. I bet that's it (but I ain't there and
you are).

dInIs

>Dennis,
>
>I'm not sure what that back-vowel fronting sounds like.  Is it
>simply /u,U/ shifting to /i,I/?  If so, what I'm hearing is
>different.  The resulting vowel is definitely not front,
although
>I don't think it's as far back as /u/.  It sounds like an
>unrounded /U/, a little farther forward than /u/.  BTW, as a
>central Indiana choir director I continually grapple with the
CIn
>diphthong /@U/ for Northern /u/.  I wonder if the high back
>unrounded vowel I'm hearing is simply that diphthong before /S/
>and the roundedness of /u/ shifts to the /S/, which is rounded
>anyway.
>
>Herb
>
>>>> preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU 09/29/00 09:07AM >>>
>Herb,
>
>Are you sure that this unrounding is not part of the very
>general
>back-vowel fronting going on among many younger speakers (as
well
>as the
>Southern-based back vowel fronting, which may be "ccooperating"
>in such
>areas as yours)?
>
>Dennis
>
>>Tensing before /S/ is wide-spread in Central Indiana too,
>although
>>it seems to divide along social class lines.  It may simply be
>>that immigrants from Appalachia, many of whom came during the
>gas
>>boom to work for glass companies like Ball Brothers, brought
>that
>>pronunciation and their communities have maintained it.  We
>also
>>have tensing of /U/ before /S/ in words like /pUS/ and /bUS at z,
>>which is similarly stigmatized.  I've also heard "leash" as
>/leiS/
>>from tensing speakers.
>>
>>A complementary change taking place among middle and upper
>middle
>>class speakers over the past twenty years--that I've been
>watching
>>it, at least--is the unrounding of /U/ before /S/ so that the
>>vowels in "bush", "push", "cushion", etc. become high back
>>unrounded.  I can't think of an appropriate ASCII IPA symbol
>for
>>that just now, but I'm referring to the IPA inverted-m.
>>
>>Herb Stahlke
>>
>>Herb Stahlke
>>
>>>>> bergdahl at OHIO.EDU 09/29/00 07:40AM >>>
>>In SE Ohio the tensing before -sh in fish, special (which
>>produces the
>>homophone special = spacial), and bush is widespread and
>>stigmatized
>>although former Gov Rhodes from jackson, Ohio didn't try to
>limit
>>it.  I
>>don't know if the much more  prevalent tensing of /E/ before
>-zh
>>in
>>measure, treasure &c. is related but that goes completely
>>unnoticed and
>>does not identify social class or region.
>>
>>____________________________________________________________________
>>David Bergdahl          http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl
>>     tel:
>>(740) 593-2783
>>366 Ellis Hall     Ohio University  Athens, Ohio 45701-2979
>>fax:
>>(740) 593-2818
>
>
>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


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