Moderator: JackFrost
Rom wrote:I was just reading an article that said that the fronting of /uw/ coupled with the low back merger were the main defining characteristics of the West. (or at least that's what I got out of it.) Is the Pacific Northwest the only region in the West that doesn't have the fronting of /uw/ or are there other areas in the West that also lack this feature?
Kirk wrote:Rom wrote:I was just reading an article that said that the fronting of /uw/ coupled with the low back merger were the main defining characteristics of the West. (or at least that's what I got out of it.) Is the Pacific Northwest the only region in the West that doesn't have the fronting of /uw/ or are there other areas in the West that also lack this feature?
Here /u/ is very clearly fronted, which is one way that Pacific Northwest speech is distinguished from Californian speech. We both have the "cot-caught" merger (which is generally true thruout the Western US and Canada) but our /u/ and /o/ are typically much fronter than a typical PCNW realization of it.
Kirk wrote:Gormur, that's interesting because most descriptions of Canadian English (barring Newfoundland) claim it's almost 100% "cot-caught" merged, while only 40-50% of Americans are "cot-caught" merged. "Cot-caught" merging is a traditional feature of Canadian English but I guess there are always a few exceptions.
Rom wrote:Kirk wrote:Gormur, that's interesting because most descriptions of Canadian English (barring Newfoundland) claim it's almost 100% "cot-caught" merged, while only 40-50% of Americans are "cot-caught" merged. "Cot-caught" merging is a traditional feature of Canadian English but I guess there are always a few exceptions.
According to the Atlas, it looks like Saskatoon is in transition, and Winnipeg has two dots next to it: one is mergered the other says: /o/ does not - /oh/ in production or perception. Regina also is "/o/ does not - /oh/ in production or perception". All the other dots in Canada are completely mergered.
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