How can I eliminate my cot-caught merger?

Lazar   Fri Oct 07, 2005 10:29 pm GMT
<<The former vowel occurs in words like

father
cot
slot
not
jot
bond
mom
bother>>

But don't forget about the lot-cloth split. In c-c unmerged American speech, this causes the "aw" sound to be used in many words where the "ah" sound would be expected from the spelling, such as:

dog
cloth
off
moss
lost
often
long
song

Generally, this occurs when the vowel is followed by [g], [N], [f], [s], or [T]. It can also occur in either or both of "gone" and "on".
Uriel   Sun Oct 09, 2005 3:09 am GMT
Remember that you're always going to sound funny to somebody somewhere, no matter what the state of your cot-caught pronunciations. I have the merger, and no one has ever asked me where I'm from.