Fronted high back vowel /u/

Tony Au todeau at GMAIL.COM
Mon Dec 21 05:01:06 UTC 2009 

Just an anecdote, but I've always noticed a friend of mine (Inland Northern
speaker) has a very fronted /u/ in "food"

Tony


On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 11:41 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:

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> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Fronted high back vowel /u/
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I sing in a community choir in Anderson, IN, and direct a church choir
> nearby, and /u/-fronting is very widespread in this area.  It causes
> problems for choral conductors, who end up spending valuable rehearsal
> time fixing choral diction problems like this.
>
> Herb
>
> On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 10:16 PM, Randall Gess <randall_gess at carleton.ca>
> wrote:
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Randall Gess <randall_gess at CARLETON.CA>
> > Subject:      Re: Fronted high back vowel /u/
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I wonder if there is any data on fronting after non-coronals. The word
> > I heard it in was "movie".
> >
> >
> > Language: Defining dreams for millennia.
> >
> > Randall Gess
> > Professor and Director
> > School of Linguistics and Language Studies
> > 215 Paterson Hall, Carleton University
> > 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa ON K1S 5B6
> > Tel: (613) 520-6612  Fax: (613) 520-6641
> > Email: randall_gess at carleton.ca
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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> >
> >
> >
> > On 20-Dec-09, at 9:20 PM, Gordon, Matthew J. wrote:
> >
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> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       "Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU>
> >> Subject:      Re: Fronted high back vowel /u/
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> My statement was based on my recollection of what Labov and
> >> colleagues reported in the Atlas of North America English. Notice
> >> that I didn't claim that every person in every part of the country
> >> outside of the Inland North has fronting of these vowels. I said
> >> that this pattern was found (i.e. could be heard from some speakers)
> >> there.
> >>
> >> To check my recollection, I took a look at the ANAE's findings (map
> >> 10.24, p. 101) on fronting of /u/ following coronals (the
> >> environment most conducive to fronting). They report fronting in at
> >> least one speaker from the following states:
> >> Alaska, Washington, California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, So. Dakota,
> >> Nebraska, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma,
> >> Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Penn.,
> >> Michigan, Kentucky, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Conn., No.
> >> Carolina, So. Carolina, Tenn., Arkansas, Louisiana, Miss., Alabama,
> >> Georgia, Florida.
> >>
> >> That's just the speakers with the most extreme fronting (normalized
> >> F2 > 1950 Hz). If you include those with moderate fronting (F2 >
> >> 1800 Hz), you pick up speakers in Oregon, Nevada, West Virginia, as
> >> well as several New England states.
> >>
> >> -Matt Gordon
> >> ________________________________________
> >> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> >> Wilson Gray [hwgray at GMAIL.COM]
> >> Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2009 6:23 PM
> >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >> Subject: Re: Fronted high back vowel /u/
> >>
> >> "Fronting of /u/ (and /o/) is found pretty much everywhere in the US
> >> except for the Inland North (e.g. the Great Lakes region)."
> >>
> >> "*Pretty much everywhere* in the US except for the Inland North"? A
> >> claim hard to support, unless you've been pretty much everywhere.
> >>
> >> When I first read of the existence of this sound shift in the intro to
> >> linguistics by the late Fr. Dineen, SJ, of Georgetown, I was totally
> >> shocked, since his statement, like yours, gives the impression that
> >> this is a feature of al dialects of US English. One of D's examples
> >> was "newn" [niun] for "noon." This and pronunciations like "skewl" for
> >> "school" are certainly common, if not standard, among white
> >> Southerners at least as far west as Abilene, TX. But, till I had
> >> occasion to live in the Northeast, I had no idea that this oddity
> >> existed anywhere else. But then, you have in mind only white speakers,
> >> right? And, even among white speakers, such speakers along the Left
> >> Coast are not being included, no doubt.
> >>
> >> However, I'm still waiting to hear it used generally from coast to
> >> coast, as, e.g. [nu:] for "new" is. (Not that [nIu] has become
> >> obsolete. *Many* people still use it.)
> >>
> >> Of course, I may have run completely off the rails, here, in
> >> attempting to take you to task about this. Sound-change is pretty
> >> unpredictable. In my lost youth, the pronunciation of, e.g. "now" as
> >> "naow" [n&u] and not as [nau] was *absolutely* not used by BE
> >> speakers, except *very* rarely in mockery of SE speakers. (E.g. there
> >> was once a popular version of the song, Temptation, recorded by one
> >> "Cinderella G. Stump," which was done in a mockery of white, mountain
> >> speech. It was also popular 'mongst us cullud chirren, though we had
> >> no idea that it was supposed to be a put-down, Saint Louis being such
> >> a speech-island, back in the day, that we didn't know that there
> >> existed people who really did speak more-or-less that way. Nowadays,
> >> I'd be hard put to find a BE speaker younger than fifty or so who
> >> still uses [nau] and not [n&u]. If it wasn't for being able to listen
> >> to my old blues and R&B records, I might even begin to doubt my own
> >> memory that [nau] was ever used by anyone outside of my own family.
> >>
> >> Once upon a time, the glo?al stop was so rare that I knew only a
> >> single individual who used it in his ordinary speech, whether
> >> monitored or unmonitored. I occasionally wondered whether he might
> >> have a speech defect. Nowadays, the glo?al stop is virtually a marker
> >> of hiphop/rap speech, and is slowly creeping into other forms of
> >> speech, based on what I hear on The Judges.
> >>
> >> -Wilson
> >>
> >> On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 12:25 PM, Gordon, Matthew J.
> >> <GordonMJ at missouri.edu> wrote:
> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>> -----------------------
> >>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>> Poster:       "Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU>
> >>> Subject:      Re: Fronted high back vowel /u/
> >>>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> This sounds like pretty classic Southern Shift: back vowel fronting
> >>> + raising of /E/ and /I/. The only thing odd would be the direction
> >>> of the glide. When diphthongal, the lax vowels in the SoShift
> >>> usually have central/schwa offglides if I recall correctly.
> >>>
> >>> Fronting of /u/ (and /o/) is found pretty much everywhere in the US
> >>> except for the Inland North (e.g. the Great Lakes region).
> >>>
> >>> -Matt Gordon
> >>> ________________________________________
> >>> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> >>> Of Randall Gess [randall_gess at CARLETON.CA]
> >>> Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2009 8:38 AM
> >>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >>> Subject: Fronted high back vowel /u/
> >>>
> >>> Hello,
> >>>
> >>> I'm new to the list. I've just started doing volunteer work on
> >>> occasion for a victim identification unit of law enforcement. I
> >>> have a
> >>> recording with a male North American speaker that has a rather
> >>> fronted /u/ sound (F1 395, F2 1816), in the word 'movie'. I've heard
> >>> this kind of fronting before, but does anyone know how widespread it
> >>> is geographically? The /E/  in leg is also a bit raised at F1 550, F2
> >>> 1942 and slightly diphthongized toward /ei/, but this is not as
> >>> pronounced as I've heard in some accents. Does anyone know where
> >>> these
> >>> features might co-occur?
> >>>
> >>> Thanks
> >>>
> >>> Randall
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Language: Defining dreams for millennia.
> >>>
> >>> Randall Gess
> >>> Professor and Director
> >>> School of Linguistics and Language Studies
> >>> 215 Paterson Hall, Carleton University
> >>> 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa ON K1S 5B6
> >>> Tel: (613) 520-6612  Fax: (613) 520-6641
> >>> Email: randall_gess at carleton.ca
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> The information in this message, including any attachments, is
> >>> privileged and may contain confidential information intended only for
> >>> the person(s) named above. Any other distribution, copying or
> >>> disclosure is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended
> >>> recipient or have received this message in error, please notify
> >>> Carleton University immediately by reply email at the contact listed
> >>> above and permanently delete the original transmission from us,
> >>> including any attachments, without making a copy. Carleton University
> >>> is fully compliant with the Freedom of Information and Protection of
> >>> Privacy Act and appreciates your cooperation in this matter.
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> -Wilson
> >> –––
> >> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
> >> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> >> –Mark Twain
> >>
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> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
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> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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