Variation in AmE (was: zero vs. "that" relatives)

[Damien Hall]

Tom Zurinskas asked what the latest findings on variation in American
English were. A very good summary is to be found in the _Atlas of North
American English_ (Labov, Ash and Boberg 2006). It's a lavishly-illustrated
book with accompanying website; many University libraries will hopefully
have access to it. Tom, as you're not attached to a University, this may
not help you much, but I hope you're able to get access to it somehow. It
allows you to compare pronunciations of all the items on a pretty long list
of words (containing many examples of each of the vowel phonemes of AmE),
pronounced by nearly 500 speakers from all over the US and Canada. As far
as analysis is concerned, the book has lots of it, but there are also
sections that give summaries of the main tendencies, before all the detail
kicks in.

Damien

--
Damien Hall

University of York
Department of Language and Linguistic Science
Heslington
York YO10 5DD
UK

Tel. (office) 01904 432665
     (mobile) 0771 853 5634
Fax  01904 432673
http://www.york.ac.uk/res/aiseb/

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