pin/pen merger, a question...

[Thom Harrison]

As a long-time speaker of Southeastern American English, I had pointed out
to me some time back that pin and pen are the same word when I say them.
Later, the merger of i and e before nasals was described as a dialect
feature of Southern English, so that, if someone asks for a p_n, you have
to ask, "A straight p_n or a ank p_n?"  People from other regions also
identify the word I use when I ask for a pen as "pin," so I try to be careful.

I have a question about Southeastern grammar, though, about a dialect that,
impressionistically, I find in southwestern Georgia, possibly southeastern
Alabama.  This is the dialect that pronounces "bomb" the same as "bum."
This dialect seems to have changed all strong verbs to weak verbs (or
irregular to regular) in a particular way: where standard English has
different past tense and past participle forms, eat-ate-eaten, this dialect
uses the past tense as the past participle as well.  So if you show up at 6
o'clock or so, the question you will be asked is, "Have you ate?"  Other
possible examples, "I've never went to Six Flags,""They've never rang the
bell this early before."

Has anyone else noticed this regularity?

Thom



At 01:29 AM 10/1/01 -0500, you wrote:
>As a speaker of Southern American English, I've noticed that I have complete
>merger in <pin> and <pen> (I specify, "straight pin" or "ink pen" when
>necessary), but no merger when the two vowels sounds do not occur before
>nasals.
>
>Rachel E. Shuttlesworth
>Applied Linguistics
>University of Alabama
>
Thom Harrison
Macon State College