Heh, I'm sorta surprised that you don't palatalize /tr/ into [tSr], as I haven't ever heard a native English speaker that I noticed as *not* doing this, besides myself, when I was a little kid, for some reason I didn't realize that palatalization of what is written as "tr" was what's supposed to be done, so I actually pronounced /tr/ as [tr] not [tSr], for a while, until I stopped doing narrow spelling pronunciations of a lot of words (which is also the point at which I started replacing a lot of formal pronunciations of words that I had learnt with more local dialectal ones, as well).
I pronounce "bore" with the same vowel as "caught" but it still rhymes with "door".
"caught" = /ko:t/ = [ko:t]
"bore" = /bo:/ = [bo:]
"door" = /do:/ = [do:]
Key: "word" /Tom's alphabet/ [X-SAMPA]
Travis,
Hmm, yeah I definitely do palatalize underlying [tr] to [tSr] in a lot of cases, but for some reason not in "transcription". I tried saying it with [tSr] and it didn't seem natural to me...however, in words like "train", "tree", and "country", I regularly palatalize underlying [tr], altho it's in free variation with the nonpalatalized version for me, even in informal speech.
So you gave me quite a lot to think about...I had never really thought of all this before...after much puzzling and saying endless "tr" words over and over I made a couple lists....
--words where it sounds natural for me to palatalize [tr]
true
tree
train
country
gentrification
nutrition
troops
metro
metropolitan (the first "o" being [@])
atrophy
--words where I don't palatalize [tr]
trap
transcribe
translate
attractive
tropical
trauma
trend
trek
truck
track
troll
trowel
try
Ok, after sounding out lots of different words, my preliminary guess is that I'm most likely to palatalize [tr] before vowels the more high, front, and unrounded they are. Using XSAMPA this apparently includes [i] [I] [eI] [@]. [o] didn't make sense to me at first, because I do palatalize before "metro" but not "troll". However, I remembered that underlying [o] in "metro" manifests itself in an almost unrounded and mid-front vowel for me--much more so than the one in "troll", which is pretty rounded and way back, undoubtedly in anticipation of the velarized alveolar lateral approximant [5]. My [u] (which would probably more accurately be described as a fronted [M] in most cases) follows the rules requiring high, (relatively) front, and unrounded vowels in order to palatalize.
Anyway, my theory probably has some holes in it but at least I got that much figured out---it seriously stumped me! Thanks for pointing that out, I was well aware before that I sometimes palatalized [tr] but I never really thought about what rules governed when I didn't. This seems to be a start. How about you, Travis, are your rules similar or different? I'm guessing at least a few of your vowels have different characteristics than mine, and vowels seem to be good indicators of palatalization in this case, at least for me.
I invariably palatalize /tr/ as [tSr], /str/ as [StSr], and /dr/ as [dZr] basically without exception, and to not do so basically requires me to force such, when I'm speaking English (even though it's what I do by default when speaking German, without any difficulty associated with "forcing" such in that case). In addition, at least in the dialect local to here, many words have palatalization in them which would not be present in them in formal American English, for example, "sister" (/sIst=r/ => [sIStS=r]) and "yesterday" (/jEst=rde/ => [jEStS=rdeI]). In these cases, the palatalization of /str/ seems to be also be extended to at least some cases of /st=r/ as well, which is something that by default does not happen in formal American English. Of course though, in certain syllable-initial consonant clusters starting with /s/, that is, /st/, /sp/, /sl/, /sm/, /sn/, and /sw/, at least locally, it seems to palatalize into [S] without much provocation, or at least I have a tendency to, at times, replace /s/ with such just automatically in such positions...
I should clarify that I don't mean that [S] is a simple allophone of /s/ that always shows up in such positions, just that it has a tendency to, at times, depending on the particular word, and whether I'm in a silly mood or not, show up in such places.
Travis,
Sorry, by [a:] I meant [A] in X-SAMPA. The reason I put a colon after the a is because that is the only way in the ASCIIbet to seperate the British/American "a" in "father" from the Australian/Irish "a" in "father."
I pronounce CAUGHT as [ka:t], but in COT I have a different vowel...
If you're from Chicago then COT would be [kat] while CAUGHT would be [kAt]. I think we must be using different alphabets; I'm using SAMPA.
I think it would be best if from now on, we all would just use X-SAMPA on this board, simply because it'd provide one universal standard for us all to use, which'd reduce confusion like this, and also because it directly parallels IPA overall, providing a very high level of accuracy with respect to specifically specifying sounds that are being used in different cases, rather than having to do things like using [a] and [a:] to separate two different sounds that actually don't differ in length specifically.
I'm not exactly sure what the purpose of the ASCIIbet is, since it isn't able to acurately transcribe anything outside of a handful of English dialects. Foreign languages and non-standard accents are out of luck.
Travis, that's interesting about the possible extent of palatalization in your dialect. I tried palatalizing [dr] using minimal pairs with the [tr] class that I do palatalize (like "dry" and "droop" for "try", "troop") and it didn't seem natural for me to produce, altho I was physically able to if I forced palatalization. I guess palatalizing [dr] isn't as much a part of my dialect. It's also interesting that sister can become [sIStS@`] for you--I wasn't aware that some areas palatalized /s/ clusters in English. Where exactly are you from?
And, Ben, I couldn't agree more with your most recent post...XSAMPA makes a lot more sense.
I'm from the Milwaukee area, specifically Wauwatosa (a suburb to the immediate west of Milwaukee proper), in southeastern Wisconsin.
I pronounce them the same. Ottawa, Ontario
To the people who pronounce them differently, do you pronounce:
caught = court
or
caught = cart
caught = court
"Caught" and "court" are homophones for me.