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TENSE-LAX NEUTRALIZATION Tense-lax neutralization refers to a neutralization, in a particular Phonological context in a particular language, of the normal distinction between Tense And Lax Vowels . In most varieties of English , this occurs in particular before and (in Rhotic Dialect s) before non-intervocalic /r/ (that is, /r/ followed by a consonant or at the end of a word); it also occurs, to a lesser extent, before tautosyllabic and . Some varieties (including most American English dialects) have significant vocalic neutralization before intervocalic /r/, as well. See English-language Vowel Changes Before Historic R . Examples
PHONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE LOW FRONT VOWELS See Also: Phonological history of English short A æ-tensing : æ-tensing is a process that occurs in some Accent s of North American English by which the vowel is raised and lengthened or Diphthong ised in various environments. In some accents it affects all s whilst in others it involves a phonemic split. Bad-lad split :The Bad-lad Split is a Phonemic Split of the Early Modern English short Vowel phoneme into a short and a long . This split is found in some varieties of English English and Australian English in which ''bad'' (with long ) and ''lad'' (with short ) do not rhyme. Trap-bath split :The Trap-bath Split is a Vowel Split that occurs mainly in southern varieties of English English (including Received Pronunciation ), in the Boston Accent , and in the Southern Hemisphere accents ( Australian English , New Zealand English , South African English ), by which the Early Modern English phoneme was lengthened in certain environments and ultimately merged with the long of ''father''. PHONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE LOW BACK VOWELS See Also: Phonological history of the low back vowels Father-bother merger :The Father-bother Merger is a merger of the Early Modern English vowels and that occurs in almost all varieties of North American English . Lot-cloth split :The Lot-cloth Split is the result of a late Seventeenth-century sound change that lengthened to before Voiceless Fricative s, and also before in the word ''gone''. Cot-caught merger :The Cot-caught Merger is a Phonemic Merger that occurs in some varieties of English causing the Vowel in words like ''cot'', ''rock'', and ''doll'' to be pronounced the same as the vowel in the words ''caught'', ''talk'', ''law'', and ''small''. PHONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HIGH BACK VOWELS See Also: Phonological history of the high back vowels Foot-goose merger :The Foot-goose Merger is a Phonemic Merger of the vowels and found in distinct Dialect s of English . Foot-strut split :The Foot-strut Split (also called the put-putt split) is the split of Middle English into two distinct phonemes (as in ''foot'') and (as in ''strut'') that occurs in most accents of English. Dew-duke merger :The Dew-duke Merger is the merger of the Middle English Front Vowel and Middle English Diphthong that occurs in all dialects of present English . Dew-new merger :The Dew-new Merger is the merger of the Middle English diphthongs and that occurs in all dialects of present English. PHONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HIGH FRONT VOWELS See Also: Phonological history of the high front vowels Lennon-Lenin merger :The Lennon-Lenin Merger is a Phonemic Merger of ( Schwa ) with unstressed (sometimes written as ) in certain dialects of English . As a result of this merger the words ''abbot'' and ''rabbit'' rhyme. Kit-bit split :The Kit-bit Split is a split of EME found in South African English , where ''kit'' and ''bit'' do not rhyme. Pin-pen merger :The Pin-pen Merger is a conditional Merger of and before the Nasal Consonant s , and . Happy tensing : Happy Tensing is the process in which final Lax becomes tense in words like ''happy''. Meet-meat merger :The Meet-meat Merger is the merger of the Early Modern English vowel (usually spelt ea, as in meat, peace, sea, receive) with the vowel (as in meet, piece, see, believe). The merger is complete outside the British Isles and virtually complete within them. A handful of words (such as ''break, steak, great'') escaped the merger in the standard accents and thus have the same vowel as words like ''brake, stake, grate'' in almost all varieties of English. The word ''threat'' rhymes with neither ''meat'' or ''great'', due to early shortening, although all three words once rhymed. VEIN-VAIN MERGER The vein-vain merger is the merger of the Middle English Diphthong s and that occurs in all dialects of present English .http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/pronunciation/ As a result of the merger, ''vein'' and ''vain'' are now Homophone s, but in early Middle English they were pronounced differently as and . Similarly ''day'' (from Old English ''dæġ'') and ''way'' (from Old English ''weġ'') did not rhyme before the merger.1 The merged vowel was a diphthong, often transcribed . It later merged (in most dialects) with the of words like ''pane'' in the pane-pain merger (see below). LONG MID MERGERS The earliest stage of Early Modern English had a contrast between the long mid monophthongs (as in ''pane'' and ''toe'' respectively) and the diphthongs (as in ''pain'' and ''tow'' respectively). In the vast majority of Modern English accents these have been merged, so that the pairs ''pane''/''pain'' and ''toe''/''tow'' are homophones. These mergers are grouped together by Wells Wells, ''ibid.'', 192–94, 337, 357, 384–85, 498 as the long mid mergers. Pane-pain merger The pane-pain merger is a merger of the long mid monophthong and the diphthong that occurs in most dialects of English . In the vast majority of Modern English accents the vowels have been merged; whether the outcome is monophthongal or diphthongal depends on the accent. But in a few regional accents, including some in East Anglia , South Wales, and even Newfoundland , the merger has not gone through (at least not completely), so that pairs like ''pane''/''pain'' are distinct. A distinction, with the ''pane'' words pronounced with and the ''pain'' words pronounced with , survived in Norfolk English into the 20th century. http://www.norfolkdialect.com/trudgill.htmldescribes the disappearance of this distinction in Norfolk, saying that "This disappearance was being effected by the gradual and variable transfer of lexical items from the set of to the set of as part of dedialectalisation process, the end-point of which will soon be (a few speakers even today maintain a vestigial and variable distinction) the complete merger of the two lexical sets under — the completion of a slow process of lexical diffusion." Walters (2001)2 reports the survival of the distinction in the Welsh English spoken in the Rhondda Valley , with in the ''pane'' words and in the ''pain'' words. In accents that preserve the distinction, the phoneme is usually represented by the spellings ''ai'', ''ay'', ''ei'' and ''ey'' as in ''day'', ''play'', ''rain'', ''pain'', ''maid'', ''rein'', ''they'' etc. and the phoneme is usually represented by ''aCe'' as in ''pane'', ''plane'', ''lane'', ''late'' etc. and sometimes by ''eCe'' and ''e'' as in ''re'', ''cafe'', ''Santa Fe'' etc. Toe-tow merger The toe-tow merger is a merger of the Early Modern English vowels (as in ''toe'') and (as in ''tow'') that occurs in most dialects of English . The merger occurs in the vast majority of Modern English accents; whether the outcome is monophthongal or diphthongal depends on the accent. But in a few regional accents, including some in Northern England, East Anglia and South Wales, the merger has not gone through (at least not completely), so that pairs like ''toe'' and ''tow'', ''moan'' and ''mown'', ''groan'' and ''grown'', ''sole'' and ''soul'', ''throne'' and ''thrown'' are distinct. In 19th century England, the distinction was still very widespread; the main areas with the merger were in the northern Home Counties and parts of the Midlands . 3. The distinction is most often preserved in East Anglian Accents , especially in Norfolk . Peter Trudgill http://www.norfolkdialect.com/trudgill.html discusses this distinction, and states that "...until very recently, all Norfolk English speakers consistently and automatically maintained the nose-knows distinction... In the 1940s and 1950s, it was therefore a totally unremarkable feature of Norfolk English shared by all speakers, and therefore of no salience whatsoever." In a recent investigation into the English of the Fens 4, young people in west Norfolk were found to be maintaining the distinction, with or in the ''toe'' set and a fronted in the ''tow'' set, with the latter but not the former showing the influence of Estuary English . Walters (2001)Walters, ''ibid.'' reports the survival of the distinction in the Welsh English spoken in the Rhondda Valley , with in the ''toe'' words and in the ''tow'' words. In accents that preserve the distinction, the phoneme descended from Early Modern English is usually represented by the spellings ''ou'', and ''ow'' as in ''soul'', ''dough'', ''tow'', ''know'', ''though'' etc., while that descended from Early Modern English is usually represented by ''oa'', ''oe'', or ''oCe'' as in ''boat'', ''road'', ''toe'', ''doe'', ''home'', ''hose'', ''go'', ''tone'' etc. JOY-POINT MERGER The joy-point merger is the merger of the Middle English Diphthong s and that occurs in all dialects of present English .http://facweb.furman.edu/~wrogers/phonemes/phone/me/mvowel.htm As a result of the merger, ''joy'' and ''point'' now have the same vowel, but in Middle English they had different vowels and were pronounced and . and fell together as present day so that ''joy'' and ''point'' are now pronounced and . The sounds and were brought into Middle English as a result of French influence (for example, English "coy" came from Old French "coi"). The Middle English diphthongs and were spelled with the same graphemes e.g. ''oi'' and ''oy''. LINE-LOIN MERGER The Line-loin merger is a merger between the diphthongs and that occurs in some accents of Southern English English , Hiberno-English , Newfoundland English , and Caribbean English . Pairs like ''line''/''loin'', ''bile''/''boil'', ''imply''/''employ'' are homophones in merging accents.Wells, ''ibid.'', 208–10 COIL-CURL MERGER The coil-curl merger is a Vowel Merger , now moribund, which historically occurred in some dialects of English . It is particularly associated with the dialects of New York and New Orleans . The merger caused the vowel classes associated with the General American phonemes , as in ''choice'', and , as in ''nurse'', to merge, making ''coil'' and ''curl'' homophones. The merged vowel was typically a diphthong , with a mid-central starting point, rather than the back rounded starting point of in most other accents of English. The merger happened only before a consonant; ''stir'' and ''boy'' never rhymed.Wells, ''ibid.'', 508 ff. The merger is responsible for the "Brooklynese" stereotypes of ''bird'' sounding like "boid" and ''thirty-third'' sounding like "toity-toid". According to a survey that was done by , now pronounce ''bird'' as . ENGLISH-LANGUAGE VOWEL CHANGES BEFORE HISTORIC R See Also: English-language vowel changes before historic r Mergers before intervocalic r Mergers Before Intervocalic R are quite widespread in North American English .
Mergers before historic coda r Various Mergers Before Historic Coda R are very common in English dialects.
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE VOWEL CHANGES BEFORE HISTORIC L See Also: English-language vowel changes before historic l
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