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Questions about the Canadian shift
1) So, it sounds like the cot-caught merger in Canada mergers to something like [Q] (Which would make it the conservative pronunciation then), whereas in California to [A]. Do some Californians merge to [Q] as well, or is that just an intermediate vowel because the California vowel shift is shifting [A] to [O]? Will [O] replace [Q] people that have completed the shift? How frequent is it for someone to always have [O]? Do Canadians ever have [A]?
2) I just read "Vowel Production in Winnipeg"*. Why is /u/ fronting not considered part of the Canadian vowel shift, but is part of the California vowel shift? Robert's Hagiwara study (Vowel production in Winnipeg 2005) shows that the F2-F1 value of /u/ in Winnipeg for women is 941, which is more front than the General American reference vowels from 1952 which the F2-F1 value is only 580. The datum for Southern California is only 135 more than that of Winnipeg. Another study shows that /u/ fronting is resisted in the Prairies. Does this means that other regions show even *more* fronting than in Winnipeg?**
3) Why isn't /U/ and /V/ fronting also considered part of the Canadian vowel shift? It seems like the amt is similar to that of California--just the /o/ fronting is lacking.
Why is "How 'general' is General Canadian?" crossed out? Does that mean that he is invalidating that previous study? Or is that supposed to highlight it? Doesn't it say in the other paper: "How 'general' is General Canadian?" that he didn't find any trace of the Canadian shift in Winnipeg? Or was I reading it wrong?
*Available here: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/canengglobal/abstracts/robert_hagiwara.pdf
**"Some of the strongest regional and gender indicators in Canadian English concern neither of
the well-known variables just mentioned [those being the Canadian shift among other things]. The fronting of /u:/, for example, is led by women and by
Ontario and British Columbia; the Prairies and the Maritimes are more resistant to it." From here: www.chass.utoronto.ca/canengglobal/abstracts/abstracts_caneng.pdf (Sounding Canadian from Coast to Coast:
Regional accents in Canadian English
Charles Boberg)
>> Older Canadians do have [A], and from what I've read the Maritimes do as well. <<
So if older Canadians do have [A], then wouldn't that mean that cot and caught merge to [A], and then shift to [Q]? Rather than they merge to [Q] and shift to [O]?
>> and accents that have [O] for any of my /Q:/ sound very different to me. <<
Do Midwestern accents (Northern but not NCVS) use [O]? I was just talking to someone from the Midwest (and I assumed he was from the West) until we started discussing the c-c merger, and I had him pronounce them, and he pronounced them to me what sounded the same, and then he surprised me by saying they were different, and that actually he was from the Midwest. So was it likely that he had [O] for "caught", or [Q], or something else?
>> The CVS has been interpreted as a pull-shift starting with the c-c merger, and /u:/ fronting doesn't really fit into that very well, so that's probably why <<
Is the California vowel shift also a pull-shift then? Why do they include the /u/ fronting?
>> By the way, where did you get the formant values for GenAm reference vowels? <<
They were in a chart in "Canadian English in the Global Context" 2005 by Hagiwara. They give values for everything except /o/. It says that the General American values were from (Petersson & Barney, 1952). They also have NCVSed values from 1995, which has an /o/ F2-F1 value of 413.
''So if older Canadians do have [A], then wouldn't that mean that cot and caught merge to [A], and then shift to [Q]?''
I've been watching CBC network (mostly news) and newscasters use both [A] and [Q] interchangeably: dawn /dAn or dQn/, Don /dAn or dQn/...
/Q/ is preferred with females and teenagers, /A/ is preferred by men, people from Toronto, and Halifax.../Q/ is preferred before L: dollar, doll /dQl@r; General American: dAl@r, dAl/...People from Manitoba use the low back rounded vowel in all /A/ words, so father has /Q/ - low back rounded vowel.
''Is the California vowel shift also a pull-shift then? Why do they include the /u/ fronting? ''
In California, the vowel shift is not that strong, it is a part of the localized sociolect (also known as Valspeak or Surfer's Dude dialect). Most people from California have fronting of ''black, map, bag'' vowel and fronting of [u], but not rounding of [A]. Maybe Josh can help you with Californian vs Canadian accent,
try Gwen Stefani interview on Much Music (Canadian Music channel) for more contrast: http://youtube.com/watch?v=bL4tPH0-on8
notice /A/ in (snow)ball in Gwen's accent
''Do Midwestern accents (Northern but not NCVS) use [O]? I was just talking to someone from the Midwest (and I assumed he was from the West) until we started discussing the c-c merger, and I had him pronounce them, and he pronounced them to me what sounded the same, and then he surprised me by saying they were different, and that actually he was from the Midwest. So was it likely that he had [O] for "caught", or [Q], or something else? ''
He might be partially merged, he is merged in production but not in perception. It's a near merger, found in transitional areas.
>> I've been watching CBC network (mostly news) and newscasters use both [A] and [Q] interchangeably: dawn /dAn or dQn/, Don /dAn or dQn/...
/Q/ is preferred with females and teenagers, /A/ is preferred by men, people from Toronto, and Halifax.../Q/ is preferred before L: dollar, doll /dQl@r; <<
Well, if that's the case, then it's pretty much the same as here. I'm not very good at hearing the difference between [A], [Q], and [O], but I know that sometimes I use [A], and othertimes a quite rounded vowel, that someone transcribed for me as [O], but may have been [Q]. But I know that I don't always use that vowel, so in that way I'd say they're pretty much interchangeable. I'm from the Western US (not California though). Listening to teenage girls around here--they have a quite rounded COT/CAUGHT vowel fairly consistently. Also /æ/->[a]. That seems to be the most common feature that differentiates their pronunciation from that of other age groups, and males around here. The most advanced speakers tend to have consistent /E/ -> [æ]. I've never heard any more than that--no /I/->[E]. Compared to other varieties /æ/ is fairly conservative before nasals--not retracted, but it usually really is [æ]. Diphthongizing it sounds a bit "other" to me.
>> Most people from California have fronting of ''black, map, bag'' vowel <<
Fronting? You mean lowering and/or retracting, right? It's the same in the dialect here as well. Except for "bag" of course, which is either merged or close to "beg" and "vague". Until I studied Phonology I never knew that "bag" had an /æ/ sound in it--it sounded like the [e] in "bay". But yeah, Californians have [æ] there.
>> and fronting of [u] <<
Yeah, I've heard that. As well as fronting of /o/.
>> but not rounding of [A] <<
Hmm. I know several people from California that do have a quite round sounding COT/CAUGHT vowel.
>> He might be partially merged, he is merged in production but not in perception. It's a near merger, found in transitional areas. <<
But see he said that he pronounced them differently. And I could tell the difference after I made him repeat it, and could see the difference in the lip rounding, but still they sounded almost, but not quite the same.
''Until I studied Phonology I never knew that "bag" had an /æ/ sound in it--it sounded like the [e] in "bay". But yeah, Californians have [æ] there. ''
Are you from Seattle?
''I know several people from California that do have a quite round sounding COT/CAUGHT vowel. ''
They must be Valley girls ;)
''Oh my Gawd'' (/gQd/'' ;)
>> Something to keep in mind is that phonemic transcriptions often use /O/ for American English, but this is phonetically [Q] in most of the US. <<
AHA! I see. Thanks for the tip. No wonder their cot and caught don't sound all that different if they're just [A] vs. [Q]. So then do NCVS folks have cot [a] and caught [A] then? So the conservative form would be cot [A] and caught [Q]?
>>AHA! I see. Thanks for the tip. No wonder their cot and caught don't sound all that different if they're just [A] vs. [Q]. So then do NCVS folks have cot [a] and caught [A] then? So the conservative form would be cot [A] and caught [Q]?<<
Depends. For instance, many individuals here, particularly the further south one goes, have the vowel scheme you describe of cot [a] and caught [A]. However, there are many such as myself who have cot [a] and caught [Q], with [A] being a positional allophone of /a/, a distinct vowel phoneme contrasting with both /a/ and /Q/ after /w/, and also the result of some other phonological processes such as the reduction of /ao/.
So why do they usually say that this dialect merges cot and caught to [Q], and then shifts [Q] to [O] rather than saying that it merges c-c to [A], and then the shift shifts them to [Q]?
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