lawn-loan

[Matthew Gordon]

The Northern Cities Shift is pushing "lawn" to "Lon" (i.e. unrounding and
lowering it). What Greg's noticed might be a hypercorrective reaction to the
NCS. I've noticed what sounded to me like exaggerated rounding of this vowel
in the name of the city by, e.g., Mayor Daley. A very rounded "lawn" would
sound closer to "loan". I don't know how general a phenomenon this
hyper-rounding is. I supposed it was common in the pronunciation of
"Chicago" b/c there is variation in the phonemic classification of this word
with some people, like the Mayor, having an open o of caught, bought, etc.
and others having the short o of cot, box, etc. in the stressed vowel of
"Chicago". Some locals might take the rounded-vowel pronunciation to be a
marker of "the true Chicagoan".

BTW, it is pretty rare to have the letter <a> by itself represent an open o
not before /l/ (e.g. ball). Are there other examples?


On 4/19/06 2:56 PM, "Greg Pulliam" <pulliam at IIT.EDU> wrote:

> It was a produced ad, but I didn't notice any other distinctive NYC
> features.  That doesn't mean they weren't there, though.  If the NCVS
> is pushing "bus" toward "boss", perhaps that's pushing "lawn" to
> "loan"?
>
> I'll keep my ear to the ground.
>
> Greg
>
>
>
>> Greg,
>>
>> Never heard by me.
>>
>> It would be a scoop for Chicago. It would be old news for NYC. I
>> noticed that it was a produced radio ad heard (but apparently not
>> produced) in Chicago.
>>
>> dInIs
>>
>>> I heard a produced radio ad today in Chicago in which the
>>> pronunciation of _lawn_ was very close to the standard /o/ heard in
>>> _loan_.
>>>
>>> Has anyone else heard this?
>>>
>>> Greg
>>> --
>>> -
>>> Gregory J. Pulliam
>>> Lewis Department of Humanities
>>> 218 Siegel Hall/3301 South Dearborn
>>> Illinois Institute of Technology
>>> Chicago, IL   60616
>>>
>>> 312.567.7968 or 312.567.3465
>>>
>>> pulliam at iit.edu
>>> http://www.iit.edu/~gpulliam
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dennis R. Preston
>> University Distinguished Professor
>> Department of English
>> 15C Morrill Hall
>> Michigan State University
>> East Lansing, MI 48824
>> 517-353-4736
>> preston at msu.edu
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
> --
> -
> Greg
>
> http://www.pulliam.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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