/ai/ vs. /@i/

Is inconsitent Canadian raising unique to the NW? It seems like almost everyone from here has it sometimes and at other times not. It also sounds less extreme to me than in the prairies.

>>Thanks Travis. Perhaps if there is no literature on the topic about the great variety in raising (the reason I posted here was because I couldn't find much information), an expert such as yourself could create some?<<

I wouldn't exactly call myself an expert, and a lot of such is just based on my own observations (and thus would not in themselves be sufficient material for any kind of scholarly content).

(Of course, it seems that very little scholarly material exists at all on dialects in much of the Upper Midwest, so even the things that I have observed would be a start as to the dialect here in Milwaukee - if I ever bothered to really write anything down...)

''Is inconsitent Canadian raising unique to the NW?''

I don't know, but that just proves the fact that NWesters sound more like a Canadian newscaster than like a US newscaster (think Katie Couric).

>>Is inconsitent Canadian raising unique to the NW? It seems like almost everyone from here has it sometimes and at other times not. It also sounds less extreme to me than in the prairies.<<

Raising of /aU/ here is very inconsistent, even though some people here have it at least sporadically. Raising of /aI/ here is much more consistent, but some people sporadically lack it, particularly older and middle-aged people here. In turn, raising of /ar/ is very consistent here, as practically everyone here has it - even AAVE-speakers here seem to have it.

However, there is *lexicalized* inconsistency of Canadian Raising here, particularly with remote raising by /r/. This is a wholly different matter from what you are speaking of here, and is not sporadic variation in raising on a speaker level but rather an aspect of individual words that could have raising themselves.