Northern Cities /aI/

[Alice Faber]

This onset sounded qualitatively different from a Canadian Raising onset
(independent of the conditioning environment). I couldn't hear if this
particular speaker had the Northern Cities fronted /a/ in "cot" (funny
how on a hockey call-in show, he didn't use the word "hockey"!). But the
onset in "team" was definitely a front vowel, in the /E/-/e/ range.

Dennis R. Preston wrote:
> Alice,
>
> Operating on the theory that others' vowels are often placed in a
> peceptual position relative to our own and (and I apologize for
> this), knowing your own linguistic background as I do, isn't it
> possible that the probably backer and higher onset of your own /ay/
> (or those you grew up with, even if you ahve eschewed it) would make
> any lower and fronter one sound even more dramatically lower and
> fronter?
>
> Just a thought.
>
> Remember too that Canadian Raising in the US borderlands often fails
> to observe the voce-voiceless rule of the original, perhaps a related
> fact. We have recent local (rural) MI evidence of  this is /ay/
> before /r/.
>
> dInIs
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
>> Organization: Haskins Laboratories
>> Subject:      Northern Cities /aI/
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> I was listening to call-in radio on my way home this evening. A caller
>> from Buffalo (oh, you should have heard the vowel in the first syllable
>> of Calgary!) pronounced "time" with an onset that I don't remember
>> having noticed before. It was fronted and raised to the extent that I at
>> first thought he'd said "tame", until the context rescued me. Am I just
>> behind the curve noticing this?


--
 =============================================================================
Alice Faber                                    faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                           tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                        fax (203) 865-8963

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