American vowels in ''cot'' and ''caught'', no /O/ in ''caught''.

Lazar   Monday, May 16, 2005, 02:19 GMT
<<As far as I know, Pittsburgh and surrounding areas share the Eastern New England cot-caught merger pronunciation:>>

Cool! I didn't know that.
Kirk   Monday, May 16, 2005, 05:48 GMT
"I use the "General American" mappings normally, even though sometimes when talking very informally and quickly, /O/ will become /A/ in my speech, which I tend to notice and to try to avoid, not because of any prescriptivist ideas or like, but more due to trying to deliberately preserve certain dialectal distinctions (similar to intentionally avoiding the use of "y'all" while specifically favoring "you guys")."

So if the merger pops up in your most rapid speech (no matter how rarely it might occur, but if it's fast I'd assume it'd at least happen reasonably often) would it be a stretch to say your speech is transitional in terms of the "cot-caught" merger?
Travis   Monday, May 16, 2005, 07:52 GMT
Kirk, you could say it is transitional in that both the merged and the unmerged forms are "valid" in my speech, despite the unmerged version being "default". I often at times will use multiple versions of the same word in my speech, differing in what phonological changes are or are not present, such as "our" being usually homophonic with "are" (/Ar/ --> [A:r\]) but when stressed heavily, sometimes being homophonic with "hour" (/aUr=/ --> [aU3`] (yes, technically, that is a triphthong there, even though it's not phonemically such)). Likewise, I alternate back and forth between "I'll" being pronounced /Al/ --> [A:5] and /aIl/ --> [aI:5], using the former when speaking quickly, and the latter when speaking formally or stressing the word in question, even though in this case, unlike with "our", there isn't a clear "preferred" form. The word "sister" is similar, as it can be /"sIstr=/ --> ["sI.st@`] or ["sIStSr=/ -> ["sI.StS@`], with the former being more formal, and the latter more informal, but with neither being specifically preferred. But overall, the unmerged version of the cot-caught merger is preferred in my speech, even though occasionally I will hear the merger show up in a word or two, which would probably make my speech slightly transitional.
Yeila   Monday, May 16, 2005, 09:32 GMT
Non-merged pronunciation sounds very old-fashioned.
Cot-caught merged person   Monday, May 16, 2005, 10:05 GMT
''Non-merged pronunciation sounds very old-fashioned.''

I agree.
Kirk   Monday, May 16, 2005, 10:14 GMT
Travis, yeah, it's pretty common in a lot of English dialects to reduce "I'll" and "our." I usually say /Al/ and /Ar/ for those, too (I believe it's a common feature in BrE, as well...I bet it's a feature that's been around awhile in English). In your area is it common for people to be transitional (or merged) in the "cot-caught" merger, or is the norm still to preserve the distinction?

"Non-merged pronunciation sounds very old-fashioned."

Depends on who you ask :) To me personally, a non-merged "cot-caught" accent doesn't necessarily sound old-fashioned, just noticeably different. Maybe there are some cases where it does sound kind of old-fashioned to me, however...for example a lot of the national broadcasts on NPR seem to be heavy in (usually East-Coast) non-merged reporters, and their highly rounded vowels in words like "law" sound very distinct...I guess you could say "old-fashioned" in some sense. I can always tell whether the station's playing a local or national program, because the local broadcasters sound more like the people I hear every day here, while the national broadcasters often sound very "other."
Travis   Monday, May 16, 2005, 12:06 GMT
Kirk, in the area which I'm in, the unmerged pronunciation is by far the most prevalent, no matter the overall register, and speaking not with just merging a word or two occasionally when speaking very quickly, but with an actual merger consistently is overall marked as not being the native dialect here, similar to not having a full Mary-marry-merry merger or a father-bother merger is marked here.

Oh, and for the record, I don't think non-merged pronunciation sounds old-fashioned at all (for some reason, I find the idea of such rather irritating, as it seems rather dismissive of let's say, half of the NAE-dialect-speaking population out there), even though I do think that the pronunciation /aUr=/ --> [aU3`] of, say, "our" is such, relative to the dialect here.
Curious   Monday, May 16, 2005, 17:40 GMT
"General American:
/O:/ ---> /O/
/Q/ ---> /A/
/A:/ ---> /A/

Eastern New England:
/O:/ ---> /O/
/Q/ ---> /O/
/A:/ ---> /A/

Western American:
/O:/ ---> /A/
/Q/ ---> /A/
/A:/ ---> /A/ "

So cot-caught merged people don't have /Q/ at all? And people who are not cot-caught merged have? Is general American English cot-caught-merged by the way?
Kirk   Monday, May 16, 2005, 17:48 GMT
"So cot-caught merged people don't have /Q/ at all? And people who are not cot-caught merged have? Is general American English cot-caught-merged by the way?"

/Q/ is generally not in North American English at all. Most NAE dialects merged /Q/ with /A/, the "father-bother" merger, while a few New England ones merged /Q/ with /O/. Either way, /Q/ is gone--even if it is produced by Americans somewhere it's unlikely to correspond to RP /Q/.

Whether or not GenAm English is "cot-caught" merged is debatable, partly because GenAm is a somewhat vague concept to begin with. What is possible to say is that around half the country does have the "cot-caught" merger, and half doesn't. That's a lot for either side. Most Canadian English, by contrast, is "cot-caught" merged.
Kess   Monday, May 16, 2005, 18:19 GMT
Cot-Caught merger is a part of General American accent as described in CAMBRIDGE ADVANCED LEARNER'S DICTIONARY:

for example CAUGHT [kot; US ka:t]

The same is true of CAMBRIDGE PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY by mr Jones :)
Curious   Monday, May 16, 2005, 18:28 GMT
Thanks Kirk, for your quick reply. That sure cleared things up for me.

I've always been really confused about this cot-caught merger and all.. So does cot-caught merger mean that in some words /O/ becomes /A/ or the opposite (depending on where you live)?

Do the people who are c-c merged always merge the vowel in the same way (that is in merged words it is always /O/ that changes to /A/ for example) or can it be mixed (so that in some words the speaker merges /O/ ->/A/ and in some words /A/ -> /O/)?
Travis   Monday, May 16, 2005, 18:28 GMT
Kess, just because said book says so does not make such so.
Curious   Monday, May 16, 2005, 18:30 GMT
Kess, thank you to you too :)
Kirk   Monday, May 16, 2005, 20:04 GMT
"Thanks Kirk, for your quick reply. That sure cleared things up for me.

I've always been really confused about this cot-caught merger and all.. So does cot-caught merger mean that in some words /O/ becomes /A/ or the opposite (depending on where you live)?

Do the people who are c-c merged always merge the vowel in the same way (that is in merged words it is always /O/ that changes to /A/ for example) or can it be mixed (so that in some words the speaker merges /O/ ->/A/ and in some words /A/ -> /O/)?"

Sure, glad to help. I also used to be pretty confused about it, because, as a "cot-caught" merged person who grew up in environments where everyone else around me was also "cot-caught" merged, I never would've guessed other people didn't pronounce them the same. The merger is usually accomplished when former /A/ and /O:/ (or former /Q/ and /O:/ in the case of New Englanders with the merger) merge into one vowel. The end result may be one of several different vowels, but it's commonly /A/. Some merge it to /O/, or somewhere in between /A/ and /O/. Here in California it can vary--/A/ is very common but vowel qualities approaching /O/ may exist as well.

I think there is some possibility that for merged speakers, different words may be merged with different vowels, but I think the norm is for a completely merged person to produce the same or similar vowels in all cases, as is the nature of sound change in languages. For me, personally, I have /A/ (or somewhere in between /A/ and /O/ at times, but usually closer to /A/ so that's how I mark it) in all "cot-caught" words, so historically (who knows when...as far as I'm aware all my family and almost my whole extended family, up to the great-grandparents, are "cot-caught" merged, so it's been around awhile) my dialect came about by the elimination of /O/, while /A/ words stayed the same. For me:

"father" /fAD@`/
"top" /tAp/
"sauce" /sAs/

I even have /A/ in words like "all," so /O/ only exists for me before /r/ as in "horrible" or as the beginning point of the diphthong /OI/ as in "boy."

Sometimes, a speaker may normally merge most "cot-caught" type words, but for some specific words they may not--those are transitional speakers.
Viola   Monday, May 16, 2005, 20:24 GMT
I don't know why COLLAR and CALLER '''should'' be pronounced different at all? It does not make any sense. I believe that EastCoast newscasters use ''spelling pronunciation'' (collar different than callar, witch different than which, often with t pronounced, center with T (instead of cenner), writer with T (instead of rider)) and so on...