[Ads-l] BAG/BEG merger/shift? Linguistics in the comics

[Joe Salmons]

Actually, NCS raises /æ/ most before /d/ and least before /g/ but Wisconsin and other places reverse the pattern. Tom Purnell and others (including me) showed the history of this flip in old recordings.

There’s some discussion of whether there is a merger of the raised/æ/. Matt Bauer is the person to look at, maybe his 2008 paper in American Speech with Frank Parker. (I’d track it down but I’m drowning in pressing work right now.) But at least for many speakers, it does not merge … for insiders. I’ve had tokens that I could just not distinguish but Wisconsin listeners didn’t blink and identified bag vs beg, etc.

Joe

From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Geoffrey Nathan <geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, December 14, 2022 at 11:32 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: BAG/BEG merger/shift? Linguistics in the comics
I could be completely off, but this sounds
like simple Northern Cities AE raising

bæɡ > bɛəɡ

Of course those who are better acquainted with the
extent of Northern Cities can confirm whether it has hit
the Dakotas.

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/an6993
geoffnathan at wayne.edu

From: Laurence Horn<mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2022 11:28 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: BAG/BEG merger/shift? Linguistics in the comics

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Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
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Subject:      Re: BAG/BEG merger/shift? Linguistics in the comics
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A phonologist would be helpful here; we have a few on call. But if "bag" is
raised, as seems to be the case, it could be raising to the standard (cough
cough) pronunciation of "beg", /E/, or to that of the tensed "bague" (as in
"vague"), /e/. In neither case is it necessarily a merger, if the vowel
position /ae/ raises to itself raises or otherwise moves--think New Zealand
English, where there's a wholesale shift of front lax vowels.  Anyone?

LH

On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 8:57 AM Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:

> Here's an Amanda the Great featuring a text message exchange between 2
> folks re: raising? backing? of the /a/ in "bag" to /e/? in North Dakotan
> English.
>
> https://www.gocomics.com/amanda-the-great/2022/12/14
>
> For thems wots collects linguistics in the comics . . .
>
> ---Amy West
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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