ah/ awe

[David Bowie]

From:    Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>

<snip>

> Enjoy using the poem, Beverly,  Try out this test for me.

> For a person that says "ah" for "awe" for a particular word ask
> him/her if he/she can hear the difference when you say that word both
> ways.  I predict for native USA speakers brought up on TV and radio,
> that they will say yes, they hear the difference.  Then ask them to
> speak the word using both ways. I'll bet they can do that too.  Then
> ask them why they use "ah" and they'll say That's the way we say it
> around their neck of the woods.  You might want to use the same word
> each time and a recording to standardize the stimulus.

Actually, given my own experience working with people's perceptions of
completed mergers, i can emphatically state that you are wrong in your
predictions--people from areas where the cot-caught merger is completed
will neither hear nor produce the difference, and even if they manage to
imitate it once or twice, that'll be an essentially random result, since
they'll get it the other way around just as often.

In fact, if you have a completed merger that isn't socially salient--as
is the case for the cot-caught merger most places it exists--people
won't even explain it by saying anything remotely like "That's the way
we say it around [our] neck of the woods." Rather, people will look at
you like you've sprouted a third head or something, to have asked them
something so utterly weird.

--
David Bowie                               University of Central Florida
     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.

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