British broad-a's, take 3

A few days ago I posted this message under the name "Murray Christmas":

I'm still collecting data for that website of mine (http://students.csci.unt.edu/~kun/dialindex.html) this time over this famous phenomenon of southern England. I already understand most of the ins and outs of the /ae/-/ah/ split but there are a few things I'd like cleared up. I got the amazingly complex NYC short-a system figured out, so this can't be that hard.

Short-a is /ah/ before the "voiceless fricatives" that is, f, s, and th, but what about sh? I looked up various words like "crash" and "slash" in my Oxford dictionary but they conveniently didn't include pronunciations for those words.

It's broad /ah/ in "lather" and "rather" (so they rhyme with "father") but /ae/ in "gather." So is the "lather" and "rather" pronuncation the rule or the exception?

I know which "nt" words are /ah/ (aunt, can't, plant, etc.) and which are /ae/ (ant). How about "mp" words? "example" and "sample" are /ah/, so are they all like that? I looked up "stamp" in the dictionary but once again, it didn't have pronunciation.

This message never got replies and it got bumped into the archives page. Then someone came along and revived it as "British broad-a's started by Murray Christmas". People did contribute to that one but now it seems to have mysteriously disappeared. What happened? Anyway, here it is again.

Tom K.,

In my Australian accent all of these words have /ah/

fast
past
pass
half
laugh
calf
ask
grass
glass
class
aunt
can't

All of these words have /ae/ in Australian accent but have /ah/ in Southern England,

dance
chance
example
sample
France

Thanks, I remember something like that being in the last thread. Anyone know what happened to that discussion? It's just...gone.

I think some troll was messing around in there and that caused the whole thread to be deleted.

"crash" and "slash" never have the "a" as in "father".

It is a clipped /ae/ sound for all speakers.