ont/ahnt

[Paul Johnston]

Dear Jonathan,
That's my pattern too.  My wife makes fun of my pronunciation of both dog and hog, (She has [D]).

Paul Johnston
On Oct 6, 2010, at 7:10 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
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>
> Father and bother rhyme perfectly for me.
>
> Dog and hog don't. At all.
>
> JL
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 6:37 PM, 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: ont/ahnt
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> "CON"/"KAHN" would work as [kDn]/[kAn] in the Pittsburgh area, I think, and
>> neither would rhyme with "town", which would be [tan].  I just checked with
>> two colleagues of mine, one from Canonsburg, PA, the other from Fairmont,
>> WV, and they had different vowels in father and bother (a near-minimal pair)
>> as [A] vs. [D] (rounded low vowel).  The latter is LOT/THOUGHT for them.
>> The former is, in Wells's terminology, PALM.
>>
>> Paul Johnston
>> On Oct 6, 2010, at 6:17 PM, David Wake wrote:
>>
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>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       David Wake <dwake at STANFORDALUMNI.ORG>
>>> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Can you offer a minimal pairs for these dialects?  E.g. "con"/"Kahn",
>>> perhaps?  I thought that, with the exception of Eastern New England,
>>> these dialects would all use their LOT vowel (rounded or unrounded)
>>> for both lexical sets.
>>>
>>> D
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 11:16 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: ont/ahnt
>>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Most dialects where the LOT class is a low back ROUNDED vowel will
>> pronounce ont and ahnt differently, particularly because of the /n/ after
>> it-- Eastern New England, the area from Erie PA through Pittsburgh down into
>> West Virginia and into Kentucky, several Upper Southern dialects, Canada--in
>> Eastern New England, the difference should be really striking: [D] (I mean
>> the IPA symbol for a low back rounded vowel here) vs. a front [a:].
>>>>
>>>> Paul Johnston
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 6, 2010, at 10:23 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>>>
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>>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>>>> Subject:      Re: ont/ahnt
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>> At 10/5/2010 08:49 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>>>> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 5:45 PM, David Wake <dwake at stanfordalumni.org>
>> wrote:
>>>>>>> "ont"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In most dialects of AmE, "ont" = "ahnt."
>>>>>
>>>>> Can you give me some examples where it doesn't?  And please don't say
>>>>> you won't.
>>>>>
>>>>> Joel
>>>>>
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