Hoarse, four, mourning etc.

[David Wake]

I may be misunderstanding your email, but Wells lists both "port" and
"pork" among the FORCE set, not the NORTH set.

David

On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 1:15 AM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Hoarse, four, mourning etc.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Does any dialect of American English have a rule which shifts
> historical NORTH words to FORCE when a labial precedes?  This would
> affect morning/mourning (and, possibly for/four), but also words like
> pork and port.  This is a really old rule (late ME/Older Scots) in
> Scots and Northern English dialects, where you get [o:] or [U@]
> instead of [O:], in both rhotic and non-rhotic dialects.
> I've heard Southern and AAVE [poUk~poU?] for pork anyway, but do you
> get other cases of this?  And does it occur among New England white
> speakers?
>
> Paul Johnston
> On Jun 29, 2010, at 10:30 AM, 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: Hoarse, four, mourning etc.
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---------
>>
>> I don't think boar/bore and board/bored are part of this historical
>> contrast. Boar, bore and board are listed by Wells (1982) as
>> members of the FORCE group, deriving from long open o in Middle
>> English. Bored isn't listed there.
>>
>> St. Louis traditionally maintains the contrast including between
>> 'for' & 'four,' 'morning' & 'mourning,' 'or' & 'ore,' etc. The
>> Atlas of North American English has acoustic evidence to illustrate
>> the contrast.
>>
>>
>> On 6/29/10 8:36 AM, "Geoff Nathan" <geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU> wrote:
>>
>> As others have noted, the 'horse:hoarse' contrast has been
>> extensively discussed on this list, and in the dialectological
>> literature. It is one of a small number of similar examples
>> ('boar:bore, board:bored' for example) that continue to contrast in
>> parts of the midwest and southern US. A competent discussion can be
>> found here
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-
>> language_vowel_changes_before_historic_r#Horse-hoarse_merger
>>
>>
>> unfortunately there are no sound samples for the contrast. The OED
>> says that RP still distinguishes them as a contrast between long
>> open-o and open-o schwa. I believe this has disappeared, however.
>>
>>
>> The other two (for:four, morning:mourning) are identical in all
>> contemporary dialects I'm aware of, and their etymologies suggest
>> that they fell together long ago (the former), or were never
>> different (the latter, at least from Middle English times). There
>> is some dispute about this, however.
>>
>>
>> Geoff
>>
>> Geoffrey S. Nathan
>> Faculty Liaison, C&IT
>> and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
>> +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
>> +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)
>>
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