Hoarse, four, mourning etc.

[David Wake]

You may be able to get some idea from http://www.soundcomparisons.com/

Try, say, the Boston accent and compare words such as "corn" and "four".

Unfortunately there aren't any minimal pairs, and all the NORTH words
are followed by a consonant, while all the FORCE words have the vowel
word-final.

David

On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 7:09 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Hoarse, four, mourning etc.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In lieu of someone to manipulate my tongue, throat, and larynx, is
> there a sound sample of speech with the distinction between these
> three pairs (or some of them) that I can listen to?
>
> Joel
>
> At 6/29/2010 09:36 AM, Geoff Nathan wrote:
>>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>>
>>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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>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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