Re: [ADS-L] Learn t o speak Wisconsin

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

Natively, I have <pIllow> but <mElk> and <Ellinois>. I lived the first 27 
years of my life in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa (b1940). Years ago, I 
trained myself to use [I] in all three.

In a message dated 9/9/07 2:40:35 AM, paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU writes:


> Just a question for Northern Cities  Vowel Shift devotees and others
> from the Great Lakes Area:  Wesconsin (and if you're a native, the
> second syllable begins with the /s/) seems to have the same lowered
> vowel you get in melk, pellow, Ellinoy for milk, pillow, Illinois.
> Does anybody know what the conditioning factor is for that lowering?
> It certainly isn't across the board.  My guess is you either have (1)
> a preceding labial, (2) a following /l/ or (3) both.  And I'm not
> sure it goes through in all those cases either.  If so, though, it
> resembles the backing rule you get in my Edinburgh data--the
> difference being, where Midwesterners have [E], the Eastern Scots
> have [^], but in the same environments.  I don't know whether there's
> any connection  historically--probably not.
> 




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