Hoarse, four, mourning etc.

Fri Jul 2 10:14:51 UTC 2010

Do you think that text messengers, advertisers and others who use the number 4 in place of  'for' make a distinction in the pronunciation of four and for?

--Margaret Lee

--- On Fri, 7/2/10, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU> wrote:

From: Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hoarse, four, mourning etc.
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Date: Friday, July 2, 2010, 3:49 AM

That just indicates that the rule might be more general than I
figured.  Historically, both had Middle English /Or/ ( > NORTH), not
ME /O:r/ (like bore, store, score, more), /OUr/ (like four), or /
uurC/ (like court, course) or any other originally long or
diphthongal vowel giving you modern FORCE.  Actually, thinking about
it, force itself belongs to this same subclass--it's from OF force,
with /OrC/ and a labial preceding.  The French origin has nothing to
do with the development--board, which is native, also joins FORCE,
though there are dialects which lengthen /Ord/ to /O:rd/ (and even /
o:rd/) in ME, and labials don't condition this lengthening or any
raising.

Paul Johnston

On Jul 1, 2010, at 6:25 PM, David Wake wrote:

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> Poster:       David Wake <dwake at STANFORDALUMNI.ORG>
> Subject:      Re: Hoarse, four, mourning etc.
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> 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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>>> 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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