Kirk,
Really? I've generally found the opposite to be the case, although I've been told that the specific vowel that caught/cot merges into is one of the few aspects of Canadian English that tends to vary greatly from place to place. I refer to [O] as the "Canadian Pronunciation" simply because it's much more standard in that country that the US (it also appears to be the "broadcast standard" from watching CBC news).
Kirk:
Not to confuse you or anything, but I think I will start using [Q] rather than [O] when transcribing the rounded Eastern New England "cot-caught" vowel.
While I'm on phonetic transcription, I should also mention [A] and [a] in Eastern New England. Rhotic speakers like me tend to use [A] for their "long-A" phoneme, while non-rhotic speakers tend to use [a].
You can tell a non-rhotic Bostonian from a non-rhotic New Yorker because the Bostonian will pronounce "car" as [ka], while the New Yorker will say [kA].
So to summarize:
Rhotic ENE (like me):
father - [fAD@`]
bother - [bQD@`]
Non-rhotic ENE:
father - [faD@]
bother - [bQD@]
Ben, you're probably right in that there's a lot of regional variation on that sound in Canada. I guess I was just speaking from personal experience--I have relatives in BC and Toronto and they seem to be "cot-caught" merged with [A]. My grandparents on one side of my family were also born and raised in Canada before immigrating to the US, and they were "cot-caught" merged with [A], as well.
Oh, ok, Lazar. Thanks for letting me know you're changing your transcription practices slightly. Are you doing it to avoid confusion or is there another reason?
<<Are you doing it to avoid confusion or is there another reason?>>
From what I've read, the consensus seems to be to transcribe it as /Q/ rather than /O/. I think it does sound a *little* different from the GA vowel in "caught".
Actually, Lazar, the New York accent goes even further, often turning "father" into /fQD@/ and "car" into /kQ:/.
I agree about using /Q/ for "bother," and here's why: if you listen to a typical Northeastern New Englander, he will pronounce the word "top" with a more rounded vowel than in General American (tQp). But he will pronounce words like "cost" and "dog" with a vowel that is actually slightly broader than the GenAm vowel /O/. This is partially why people pronounce "Boston" as "BAH-ston" when sending up the Boston dialect--where GenAm would say /bOst@n/, ENE says /bQston/--a very minute but present difference.
Kirk and Ben:
Forget what I wrote about rhotic ENE-speakers using [A]. Now that I think about it, we tend to use [a], just like the non-rhotic speakers.