General American English

Iowa   Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:37 am GMT
So you're saying that the speaker is from east-central Iowa? Wow, it's cool how you guys can pin down an accent so easily.
Lazar   Fri Nov 21, 2008 1:19 am GMT
<<So you're saying that the speaker is from east-central Iowa? Wow, it's cool how you guys can pin down an accent so easily.>>

No, he wasn't saying that at all. He was saying that he thought east-central Iowa was the area where the dialect most closely approximates General American.
Iowa   Fri Nov 21, 2008 1:46 am GMT
>> No, he wasn't saying that at all. He was saying that he thought east-central Iowa was the area where the dialect most closely approximates General American. <<

So it's Omaha then?
Lazar   Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:21 am GMT
No, nobody was suggesting that the speaker was from Omaha either.
Milton   Fri Nov 21, 2008 5:13 am GMT
Low back merger is spreading across NY:

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~dinkin/NWAV37Handout.pdf

Finally WestPa and NewEngland will be joined together in the low back merger kingdom, upstate NY is necessary to make a continuum ;)
Travis   Fri Nov 21, 2008 11:31 am GMT
In all honesty, though, I am not sure that really pinning down GA per se, as a learner, is really all that important, as long as one has pinned down *some* NAE variety that can be used formally. Of course, in many places such is not going to differ from GA per se that much (for example, in California such would likely just be a matter of some limited differences in vowel position and rounding), but such differences would still go beyond the margin of error implied by trying to actually learn GA proper itself. (Then there are places where there is a truly local formal speech that does differ non-trivially from GA, including localized versions of GA, such as here, but those are probably in the minority through North America.)
Trawicks   Fri Nov 21, 2008 4:00 pm GMT
I actually think GenAm is very specific (with COT-CAUGHT merging being the one substantial variant). Rather than thinking in terms of how close an accent literally is to GenAm, I rather think there are a number of "acceptable deviations" which still keep you in the realm of "good" American speech, compared with other deviations which are more empthatically "not GenAm". If I could make a list of "acceptable" and "unacceptable" deviations is would look something like this:

ACCEPTABLE DEVIATIONS:

--lowering or short front vowels
--retraction of short front vowels
--centralizing of LOT phoneme
--rounding of LOT phoneme
--unrounding of /ɔ/
--fronting of /u/
--fronting of /ʌ/
--Canadian raising
--fronting of /ou/

"UNNACCEPTABLE" DEVIATIONS

--non-rhoticity
--turning dental fricatives to plosives
--raising of /æ/ before non-nasals
--raising and/or dipthongization of /ɔ/ (as in NYC English)
--Southern dipthongization of short vowels
--glide deletion in /ai/ words
--backing of /ai/ as in NYC English and some Southern English
--lowering of /ei/ (as in Southern and some Mid-Atlantic English)

So in theory a Canadian is deviating as strongly from Gen Am when he lowers GenAm /e̞/ to /æ/ than a Southerner is when he raises this same vowel to /ɪ/. Yet clearly one shift (the Southern one) is considered to be further from General American than the other, even if those shifts are theoretically equal. It's classist and regionalist, but a pretty real distinction.
Travis   Fri Nov 21, 2008 5:31 pm GMT
>>--raising of /æ/ before non-nasals<<

This is one that I would strongly dispute with regards to General American, because most modern NAE dialects raise historical /æ/ to /ɛ/ before /r/ as part of the Mary-merry-marry merger. Such does not take place in *conservative* GA, but normal modern GA does most definitely have such.

Beyond that, though, the thing is what you were referring to really is not General American as anything resembling a firm standard but rather a general set of guidelines for NAE varieties that are relatively standard-ish and "accentless". A whole number of the "acceptable deviations" that you list to me at least are things that belong to wholly different dialect groups, and are in no way parts of GA as a *standard*.

But even from a sociological standpoint, saying such is a matter of what is considered acceptable in more formal circumstances versus what is not does not seem to work. The matter is that in some places, such as here, one may effectively have the parallel existence of GA and higher registers of the local dialect. In such circumstances, higher registers of the dialect in question are certain considered acceptable for use, yet at the same time differ non-trivially from GA, which is used by some people in the same sorts of contexts. So then GA is not simply the higher register on a local level, but rather an outside variety competing with higher registers of the local dialect. Hence the whole matter cannot be framed in terms of "acceptability" in the first place.
Lazar   Fri Nov 21, 2008 6:18 pm GMT
<<Finally WestPa and NewEngland will be joined together in the low back merger kingdom, upstate NY is necessary to make a continuum ;)>>

Well I would argue that Eastern New England is not low-back merged, because it maintains distinct phonemes /A:/ and /Q:/, just like General American does - they're just distributed differently (with ENE distinguishing "father-bother" and GA distinguishing "cot-caught"). I would consider the low back merger to be a combination of the father-bother and cot-caught mergers; WestPA has no more in common with ENE (both merging-cot-caught) than it does with GA (both merging father-bother). That said, I think there are some speakers in Western New England - especially Vermont - who may have a full low back merger.
Milton   Fri Nov 21, 2008 7:07 pm GMT
''--glide deletion in /ai/ words ''

Some G.A. speakers don't have the glide at all but a dythphong [aI] or [ae] rather than [aj]
Travi   Fri Nov 21, 2008 7:17 pm GMT
>>''--glide deletion in /ai/ words ''

Some G.A. speakers don't have the glide at all but a dythphong [aI] or [ae] rather than [aj]<<

/ai/ was being used in general terms there, and not as indicating an exact realization thereof. I actually doubt many North Americans who actually have true [ai̯] for such, with such practically always being more like [aɪ̯] or [ae̯], monophthongization and Canadian Raising notwithstanding.
Movi   Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:29 am GMT
I'm guessing the speaker is from southern Illinois.