Raleigh, N.C. -- awesome or aw-dropping?

[Michael Newman]

I’m with Larry.

Remember that all good NYers have three vowels in the back there not two. In Wells lexical sets which is much clearer than this “awe” business it’s

LOT= My Raleigh, NY
PALM= My Sir Walter Raleigh (also the vowel in Walter due I suspect the w as much as the l)
THOUGHT= coffee etc.

I’ve lost a lot of the PALM set which in old timers appears in descendants of  Middle English short-O words before voiced stops and many voiceless fricatives (god, Bob and gosh) in a way reminiscent of the short-A split. This is mentioned in various of Labov’s early work and again in ANAE. There’s also an article by Jonathan Kaye and as soon as DeGruyter publishes New York City English, there will be an explanation there. I’ve got a couple of very talented undergrads lined up to study its evolution in old NYC families. Let’s hope they get it right, and I can present the results at NWAV.

The funny thing is that people often don’t seem aware of the existence of NYCE PALM.





Michael Newman
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Communication Disorders
Queens College/CUNY

mnewman at qc.cuny.edu

On Feb 13, 2014, at 10:21 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:

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> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Raleigh, N.C. -- awesome or aw-dropping?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Feb 13, 2014, at 8:30 AM, Paul Johnston wrote:
>
>> No.  I am a [po at li], so there's no low-vowel merger there.  Rawley is [ro at li].  I have the usual NYC area pattern.
>>
>> Paul(ie)
>
> Hunh.  I think of my NYC pattern as having an open o for that vowel rather than a [o@], although I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there is an off-glide.  We probably have the same vowel there and just different religious beliefs about what it really is.  And yours is probably correct.
>
> LH
>
>> On Feb 13, 2014, at 8:14 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>> Subject:      Re: Raleigh, N.C. -- awesome or aw-dropping?
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> On Feb 13, 2014, at 1:11 AM, Paul Johnston wrote:
>>>
>>>> Script a for me, even with Sir Walter.
>>>
>>> But I assume these wouldn't be homophonous with "Rawley" or rhyme with Jane Pauley (or a putative self-diminutive Paulie) for you, right?
>>>
>>> LH
>>>
>>>> On Feb 12, 2014, at 10:46 PM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> 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: Raleigh, N.C. -- awesome or aw-dropping?
>>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> At 2/12/2014 08:47 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>>>>> I suspect I've gone back and forth on Raleigh (North Carolina, Sir
>>>>>> Walter, cigarettes, whatever), between Rollie (which I pronounce
>>>>>> with an [a], or really script a, vowel as in the first name of the
>>>>>> ex-A's/Brewers' relief pitcher Fingers) and Rawley.  I think I might
>>>>>> be more likely to use the open-o for Sir Walter Raleigh because of
>>>>>> the rounding in his first name, more so than in the snow- and
>>>>>> ice-bound N.C. city.   It's hard for me to be sure exactly how I
>>>>>> tend to pronounce these unselfconsciously, though. (
>>>>>
>>>>> I find that I react (recoil?) when I *hear* a pronunciation that's
>>>>> not mine, but like LH am unsure about my own pronunciation when I
>>>>> deliberately think about it or speak it out.  I've begun to trust my
>>>>> first reaction and discount my experiments.
>>>>>
>>>>> Joel
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> (No danger of "awe"-extinction for me, though--I would never merge
>>>>>> the pronunciation of "Cawley" (as in the late Jim McCawley) and
>>>>>> "collie", for example.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> LH
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Feb 12, 2014, at 7:10 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Raleigh, North Carolina, is much in the news this moment for its
>>>>>>> proximity to North Carolinians of stupidity (to paraphrase its
>>>>>>> governor).  I hear announcers saying "Rollie" (almost "Rah-lee", but
>>>>>>> not quite?).  I learned "Raw-lee".  Is that because I'm an effete
>>>>>>> (North-)* Easterner?  Or did I learn it from hearing pre-modern announcers?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * South-Easterners' methods may differ.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Joel
>>>>>>>
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