Phonemic vowel length

[David Sutcliffe]

It's not a foolish question: I certain can't confirm much in this area. I get the impression that traditional vowel length - as opposed to what Labov is observing - has disappeared from standard northern / network (American) English and similar accents, and that's what I'm hoping to get some confirmation or sidelight on.

On the other hand with the nineteenth century born Black English speakers that I have recordings of, you can distinguish one word from another on the basis of length alone, and count the beats: my arm comes out as /maaam/.


David

Jonathan Lighter wrote:

 can't confirm from subjective experience that any difference in vowel length between "God" & "guard" is phonemic in NYC, though as an "r"-ful sort I'm not the best judge.

Can anyone confirm this report ? (Or is it so well known that this becomes a foolish question ?)

JL

David Sutcliffe <david.sutcliffe at UPF.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: David Sutcliffe
Subject: Re: Phonemic vowel length
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Re:phonemic length, David Bergdahl wrote
I have phonemic length in only one pair: bomb/balm~ bam/ba:m

That's interesting: a length distinction not lost because it distinguishes between two words that would fall together otherwise. Very hard to find more pairs like this - ie Somme v psalm, oms v. alms! Peter Patrick tells me in New York the vowels of God and guard are qualitatively different any way.

David

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