"ong" in American cot-caught nonmerged speech.

Rick   Sun Aug 03, 2008 8:53 pm GMT
"ong" words like "long", "wrong" starting to have the THOUGHT vowel rather the LOT vowel is often stated as part of the lot-cloth split. However, I'd say that it's not part of the lot-cloth split. Rather it is an entirely different phenominum. I'd say that it is more related to the "ang" raising occurring in North American English than to the older lot-cloth split. [{N] starts raising to [eIN] and similarly [QN] starts raising to [O:N]/[Q:N]. Conservative RP has the lot-cloth split but no "ong" raising.
Lazar   Sun Aug 03, 2008 11:03 pm GMT
No, that's not true. The lot-cloth split, in American English, included many different cases with a following velar consonant, such as "dog" and "chocolate" as well as the "-ong" words. This pronunciation is part of conservative General American and it's universally found in American dictionaries. "-ang" raising (as well as "-ing" raising) is a more recent phenomenon that's not part of conservative General American. (In any case, the changes of [{N] to [eIN] and of [AN] to [QN] or [ON] aren't even in the same direction, so they make no sense as a chain shift.) As an example of the antiquity of the "ong" raising, I think you'll find that people with a traditional New York accent would pronounce "ong" words with [O:], [O@] or [UO] and "ang" words with [{].
Rick   Sun Aug 03, 2008 11:53 pm GMT
<<The lot-cloth split, in American English, included many different cases with a following velar consonant, such as "dog" and "chocolate" as well as the "-ong" words.>>

The lot-cloth split originated in England and didn't include those words. The split was brought to America from England. Later on, before the father-bother merger even occurred, "-ong" raised from [QN] to [O:N] or [Q:N]. This is however not the lot-cloth split, as that was an earlier thing. True "-ong raising" is older than "-ang raising" but it's still a separate phenomenon, as it is in turn older than the lot-cloth split. "dog" and "chocolate" shifted to from [Q] to [O:] as part of a random sound change, as they are common words, similar to how "catch" becomes [kEtS] for many speakers.
Rick   Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:22 am GMT
If pronouncing "-ong" with the THOUGHT vowel were part of the lot-cloth split, we should expect conservative RP to have it. It doesn't. "-ong raising" is a different phenomenon from the lot-cloth split. Otherwise conservative RP would have it.
Uriel   Mon Aug 04, 2008 2:42 am GMT
Thought and lot have different vowels? ;P
Lazar   Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:40 am GMT
I don't dispute that the lot-cloth split, as it occurred in England, did not include pre-velar cases. But in American English, influence from following velar consonants did tend to induce a shift from /Q/ to /O:/ - the American version of the lot-cloth split was broader. You could argue that this sound change in American English is a separate phenomenon, and give it a separate name, but conventional opinion is that it was an extension of the lot-cloth split. In American English, a position followed by /g/ or /N/ was simply one of a number of situations where historical /Q/ moved to /O:/, and I don't think we should arbitrarily separate these cases just because the British version of the split was narrower.

<<"dog" and "chocolate" shifted to from [Q] to [O:] as part of a random sound change, as they are common words, similar to how "catch" becomes [kEtS] for many speakers.>>

Shifting before /k/ was much more sporadic, yes, but "dog" was not the result of random sound change. The lot-cloth split affected most words ending in /Qg/, like "dog", "hog", "log", "frog", "bog", "dialogue" (the only major exception that I can think of being "cog"), just as it affected most words ending in /QN/.

<<Thought and lot have different vowels? ;P>>

Well, it depends on where you're from. :)
Sho   Mon Aug 04, 2008 9:57 am GMT
As far as I know, "jog" is an exception of lot-cloth split:)

Any thoughts as to why "cog" and "jog" were not affected?
Rick   Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:00 am GMT
<<I don't dispute that the lot-cloth split, as it occurred in England, did not include pre-velar cases. But in American English, influence from following velar consonants did tend to induce a shift from /Q/ to /O:/ - the American version of the lot-cloth split was broader. You could argue that this sound change in American English is a separate phenomenon, and give it a separate name, but conventional opinion is that it was an extension of the lot-cloth split. In American English, a position followed by /g/ or /N/ was simply one of a number of situations where historical /Q/ moved to /O:/, and I don't think we should arbitrarily separate these cases just because the British version of the split was narrower.>>

Okay perhaps so. Interesting, however, is the pronunciation of "gone" in New York English. New Yorkers I've heard pronounce it [gAn] whereas conservative RP definitely has [gO:n]. It seems that in New York English "gone" has shifted back to having the LOT vowel.
Guest   Mon Aug 04, 2008 2:12 pm GMT
>> Okay perhaps so. Interesting, however, is the pronunciation of "gone" in New York English. New Yorkers I've heard pronounce it [gAn] whereas conservative RP definitely has [gO:n]. It seems that in New York English "gone" has shifted back to having the LOT vowel. <<

I've noticed that most Northerners pronounce "gone" and "on" differently.
Rick   Mon Aug 04, 2008 2:24 pm GMT
<<I've noticed that most Northerners pronounce "gone" and "on" differently.>>

Yep, as "gone" was part the original lot-cloth split whereas "on" wasn't. There are southern dialects that have "on" with the THOUGHT vowel, which was a later innovation. On the other hand, New York English has "gone" and "on" both with the LOT vowel.
Trawicks   Mon Aug 04, 2008 3:05 pm GMT
I would guess that, like Canadian Raising, this may be related to Scottish and Scots-Irish vowel lengthening. I would also guess that these rules are hard to predict because the actual length distribution in Scotland and Northern Ireland is itself quite hard to predict. In some dialects it only involves vowels before voiced fricatives, in other variants this rule can include all fricatives and numerous velars.

I'd say when you figure that a lot of these dialects were mixing with British English (and the "CLOTH" set) in colonial America it's unsurprising that these two phonemes are pretty illogically distributed in American English.
Milton   Tue Aug 05, 2008 2:54 am GMT
Western US has /A/ in -ong words, which is an unrounded version of RP [Q].
So, in LA and in London ''song, long, wrong, dong'' rhyme with Hong Kong, but in NYC they don't rhyme. All my friends from California pronounce ''song'' with the unrounded vowel (even the Valley girls*)

Try this song to hear that pronunciation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqpA5Acc8-c

L/A/ng Beach is in California, L/O/ng Beach is New York ;)


Strangely enough, American dictionaries like American Heritage or Random House don't list the /A/ pronunciation of ''dawn, law, hawk'' but they do list the /A/ pronunciation of -ong words, which leads us to believe /A/ in -ong words is older than /A/ in ''hawk, dawn, talk'' or ''falling, taller''...

---
*
Valley girls I know have /Q/ in ''mom'' but /A/ in ''song'' and ''fall'' ;) go figure
Lazar   Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:14 pm GMT
<<Strangely enough, American dictionaries like American Heritage or Random House don't list the /A/ pronunciation of ''dawn, law, hawk'' but they do list the /A/ pronunciation of -ong words, which leads us to believe /A/ in -ong words is older than /A/ in ''hawk, dawn, talk'' or ''falling, taller''...>>

Well, American dictionaries often list non-lot-cloth-split pronunciations as secondary or optional. I don't think they would consider cases like that to be part of a cot-caught merger, but rather cases of an incomplete or absent lot-cloth split.
Rick   Thu Aug 07, 2008 2:25 pm GMT
<<You could argue that this sound change in American English is a separate phenomenon, and give it a separate name, but conventional opinion is that it was an extension of the lot-cloth split. In American English, a position followed by /g/ or /N/ was simply one of a number of situations where historical /Q/ moved to /O:/, and I don't think we should arbitrarily separate these cases just because the British version of the split was narrower.>>

Well what about /wQ/ to /wO:/ e.g. "wash" /wO:S/, and /Ql/ to /O:l/ e.g. "doll" /dO:l/ that occurs in some non-c-c merged American dialects, though doesn't exist in conservative General American. Is that also an extension of the lot-cloth split?
Lazar   Thu Aug 07, 2008 7:00 pm GMT
Yeah, I think you could call it an extension of the split.