coffin pronunciation

Sun Mar 16 05:37:18 UTC 2008

Tom,
if it's a phoneme, you should have a minimal pair, or some kind of
contrast with other nearby vowels in the SAME PHONETIC ENVIRONMENT.
If this is a rhotic accent you're describing (and your other postings
tell me that), and your sound in this set of words occurs only
before /r/, then it's an allophone, because, according to you, your
"awe" (open o) and "oh" (closed o) don't occur before /r/.  And a lot
of dialects--that of my Michigan students, for one--have phonetic
values similar to what you describe (more true for their vowel in
there, air, which does seem to be between [E] and [e], than their
~or, which sounds like a plain old open o to me; it still isn't their
vowel in awe, law, caught, which is turned a or something similar).
The question is: what are these sounds allophones of and that is
tricky.  My students PERCEIVE these vowels as being  [o  e], even if
they're as much as one step lower.  But I perceive my ~or--and I'm
rhotic too--as being an allophone of my vowel in caught, not in coat,
even though it may be no higher than my students' sound. and yet, my
~air, I perceive as part of the /e/ phoneme too (though I have Mary
and merry as identical).  This is a classic case of phonemic
neutralization in either dialect, and some old-fashioned phonological
theories would postulate something called an archiphoneme here
(saying, in effect, it's not an /O/ and it's not an /o/, it's both at
the same time).  In a pinch, I'd probably assign on the basis of
native speaker perception, if there was no patterning in the system
suggesting otherwise.  But it's not a phoneme in its own right in
rhotic dialects, anyhow.

Paul Johnston

On Mar 15, 2008, at 4:46 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: coffin pronunciation
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> My take is that the "o" in "forest" and "orange" is a separate
> phoneme ~or (as influenced by "r") from "awe" , not an allophone.
> The sound is between "awe" and "oh".  In fact for "r-droppers" the
> word "more" can be anywhere from "moe" to "maw", depending on
> accent.  But under the influence of "r" the "o" gets a different
> value, as in floor, more, boar, order.  The same with ~er and ~air.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems"
> at authorhouse.com.
>
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Laurence Horn
>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------
>>
>> At 7:14 PM +0000 3/15/08, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>> Actually it's the reverse.
>>> See Bert Vaux's American Dialect study at
>>> http://www4.uwm.edu//FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html
>>> It has maps of dialect areas. Number 28 is the caught/cot question.
>>> It shows western prevalence for pronouncing cot/caught the same.
>>
>>
>> Actually, that's not quite right. Two different issues are involved
>> here, which you're treating as the same issue. It's long been
>> recognized that the cot/caught merger is more likely to appear in
>> western U.S. English than in the eastern states. But if you've been
>> reading this thread, you'll have seen that a number of the
>> northeastern respondents are claiming that (i) they do make the
>> distinction in environments like "caught" vs. "cot" (open-o vs. /a/
>> respectively) but (ii) they pronounce "coffin" with the open-o. I'm
>> in that group, along with several others who wrote in; in fact, I
>> probably exhibit considerable variation in my pronunciation of
>> "coffin", as well as in rhotic environments ("forest", "orange"), as
>> also discussed here in the past. This doesn't mean I merge "caught"
>> and "cot" (or "wrought" and "rot"), though.
>>
>> LH
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> The data show that 61% of Americans pronounce cot/caught
>>> differently. How the merger is getting so much play in the media is
>>> baffling to me. Must be a westernbroadcast export. It is not a
>>> good thing. It needlessly creates homonyms which interfere with
>>> clearest communications. I hope no one is teaching that dropping
>>> "awe" for "ah" is a good thing.
>>>
>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems"
>>> at authorhouse.com.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>> Poster: Rowan McMullin
>>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>>
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> ------------
>>>>
>>>> In the midwest, most of the people I've heard (who make a
>>>> distinction, that
>>>> is, between /a/ and open-o) still pronounce "coffin" with an
>>>> open-o. To me,
>>>> pronouncing it with an /a/ sounds like an east-coast thing.
>>>>
>>>> -Rowan
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 10:27 PM, Tom Zurinskas
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> -------------
>>>>>
>>>>> Is that your usual, Scot? Beating people. How old are you?
>>>>>
>>>>> I would think that the pronunciation of the vowel in words with
>>>>> "off" in
>>>>> it as "ah" is a recent phonomenon. In fact if "on" and "off"
>>>>> have the same
>>>>> "ah" sound, it could be confusing if the second phoneme is said
>>>>> softly or
>>>>> drops out. "Turn it ah..." could be interpreted either way.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>>>> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional
>>>>> Poems" at
>>>>> authorhouse.com.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>>> Poster: Scot LaFaive
>>>>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> -------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Coffee" has always been ~kaufee. But not anymore. The "awe-
>>>>>>> droppers"
>>>>>>> refuse to say the sound ~au, and are dropping it out of the
>>>>>>> American
>>>>>> English>foenubet. Not good.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A friend of mine says [kah-fi] for "coffee." Shall I beat him
>>>>> unmercifully
>>>>>> until he submits to the proper pronunciation? The bastard does
>>>>>> *refuse*
>>>>> to
>>>>>> say [kaw-fi].
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Scot
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 9:52 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> -------------
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It's an "open o" or "backward c" or whatever other visual
>>>>>>> description
>>>>> you
>>>>>>> want to give the IPA symbol for the vowel sound "awe" (which in
>>>>> truespel is
>>>>>>> ~au). So it's ~kaufin. Always has been. The word "off" has
>>>>>>> always been
>>>>>>> ~auf. "Coffee" has always been ~kaufee. But not anymore. The
>>>>>>> "awe-droppers" refuse to say the sound ~au, and are dropping
>>>>>>> it out of
>>>>> the
>>>>>>> American English foenubet. Not good.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Data show that American folks still prefer ~au at least for
>>>>>>> "caught"
>>>>>>> instead of pronouncing it "cot". But many newscaster in FL are
>>>>> replacing
>>>>>>> "awe" with "ah". In fact some say "cloddy" instead of "cloudy".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>>>>>> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional
>>>>>>> Poems" at
>>>>>>> authorhouse.com.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>>>>> Poster: Matthew Gordon
>>>>>>>> Subject: coffin pronunciation
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> -------------
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I was listening to a podcast featuring 2 thirty-something
>>>>>>>> New Yorkers.
>>>>>>> One
>>>>>>>> of them pronounced 'coffin' with an open-o, and the other
>>>>>>>> ridiculed
>>>>> him,
>>>>>>>> saying something about how it's not 'coughin'.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> My question for those of you who maintain the distinction
>>>>>>>> between /a/
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>> open-o: Do you all have /a/ for 'coffin'? I'm wondering
>>>>>>>> whether this
>>>>> is
>>>>>>>> another example of a word that varies in its phonemic
>>>>>>>> assignment.
>>>>>>>>
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