Phonological Transfer as a Forerunner of Merger in Upstate New York

Abstract

Herold (1990) discusses three mechanisms by which phonemic merger can take place: expansion, approximation, and transfer. A fourth possibility Herold touches on but does not explore might be called phonological transfer: as in (lexical) transfer, words move abruptly from one phonemic class to another; but rather than one lexeme at a time being transferred, all words of a particular phonological class move simultaneously. This paper provides evidence that phonological transfer is playing a role in the movement toward merger of /o/ (as in lot) and /oh/ (as in thought) in Upstate New York. Words containing (olF)—i.e., historical /o/ followed by /l/ plus a labiovelar, as in golf and revolve—are produced with /oh/ rather than /o/ in 74 percent of tokens; this use of /oh/ is increasing in apparent time. Many speakers using /oh/ in (olF) words have an otherwise clear phonemic distinction between /o/ and /oh/; however, the geographic distribution of this phonological transfer is correlated with other indices of progress toward the low back merger. This indicates that phonological transfer can be regarded here as an early sign of merger in progress, and that a single merger can proceed by two mechanisms simultaneously (here, approximation and phonological transfer).

Gradience, allophony, and chain shifts

“…The phonologically and phonetically controlled systems of prenasal /æ/-raising can be exemplified by two speakers interviewed by Dinkin (2009) in New York state. Sarah L. from Cooperstown, New York, displays /æ/-raising as a phonological rule, as shown in Figure 1.…”

Visual Speech Perception Cues Constrain Patterns of Articulatory Variation and Sound Change

“…While it is generally recognized to be difficult or impossible to predict future sound changes, 10 continued work on the articulatory patterns underlying the NCVS may shed light on ongoing change in the region. Recent research has shown that, among younger speakers, the NCVS is in decline and reversing in many cities (Dinkin, 2009 ; McCarthy, 2010 ; Friedman, 2014 ; Driscoll and Lape, 2015 ). For speakers from Lansing, Michigan, Wagner et al ( 2016 ) find that /ɑ/ is receding from its previously fronted position and returning to a more canonical low back position.…”

Multiple vectors of unidirectional dialect change in eastern New England

“…Reviewing prior literature in this dialect region, we selected seven phonological features that have been traditionally recognized as features of eastern New England: nonrhotic speech, intrusive-r, fronted father , fronted start , hoarse/horse distinction, mary/marry/merry distinction, and broad-a in bath ( Appendix A) 1 . In choosing these particular variables, we drew from New England descriptions in ANAE (Labov et al, 2006:225–232), Boberg (2001), Dinkin (2005, 2009, 2011), Johnson (2010), Kurath (1939), Kurath and McDavid (1961), Laferriere (1977, 1979), Madan (2010a, 2010b), Nagy and Roberts (2004), Nagy (2001), Roberts (2006, 2007), Stanford et al (2012), and Villard (2009).…”

“…2.Other variables that may be worthy of future exploration in the New Hampshire area include Canadian raising (see Roberts, 2007, for a study of Vermont lowering), t- glottalization (Roberts, 2006), dance/trap distinctions (Johnson, 2010; Labov et al, 2006:182; Wood, 2011), the stressed penultimate syllable in –mentary words (Dinkin, 2009:338), and a possible “spread-lip” variant of [ɚ] (Stanford et al, 2012:163).…”