Cot-caught distinction

Guest   Wed Dec 17, 2008 5:56 am GMT
I have heard that people who are cot-caught merged are unable to hear a difference in the pronunciations of "cot" and "caught" in unmerged people. However, I find that even I have the merger, I can tell if I'm speaking to someone without it. Why would this be?
Lazar   Wed Dec 17, 2008 6:21 am GMT
Don't worry; having a phonemic merger does magically not impair your ability to recognize sounds. That said, the distinction between the two phonemes in question - /A:/ and /Q:/ - can be quite subtle for many American English speakers (with just a slight difference in backness and roundedness), and even their fellow distinguishers may sometimes find it hard to recognize the two sounds in the speech of others.
Lazar   Wed Dec 17, 2008 6:28 am GMT
By the way, did you read it here ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cot-caught_merger#Cot-caught_merger )?

<<For merged speakers in Canada and most of the United States, the two sounds [ɑ] and [ɔ] are allophones; they often do not perceive differences in their usage, hear neither of them as a separate phoneme, and hear the distinct vowels used by speakers whose dialects do distinguish them as variations on the same vowel. They hear the broad A of British Received Pronunciation as the same, single vowel sound. But in Received Pronunciation, there are three sounds distinguished: the long /ɑː/ of cart, the long /ɔː/ of caught, and the short rounded /ɒ/ of cot.>>

What's written there is complete and utter bullshit. No one in their right mind would be unable to hear the difference between RP [ɑ:] as in "car" and RP [ɔ:] as in "core". Just as a general rule, never trust Wikipedia. It's anarchistic, it's schizophrenic, it's riddled with error; in short, it's hopeless.
Guest   Wed Dec 17, 2008 7:07 am GMT
Thanks. Yes, that is where I read it.

I have another question. Do you know what vowels someone who grew up in New Jersey in the 1930s would be likely to use for "cot" and "caught"? Has the accent in New Jersey changed a lot since then?
Lazar   Wed Dec 17, 2008 7:28 am GMT
My guess: Based on what I know of the New York and Philadelphia dialects, they probably would have used a pretty tense (i.e. mid-level) [ɔ:] in "caught", and [ɑ:] in "cot".
Milton   Thu Dec 18, 2008 12:19 am GMT
Very raised/closed pronunciations can be tricky, for example NYC ''called '' [kold] may sound like traditional Western ''cold'' [kold]; and East Coast '' SuperBall'' sounds like Western ''SuperBowl'', Back East ''bald'' [bold] sounds like Western 'bold'' [bold]. In traditional Californian ball is /bAl/ and bald is /bAld/. Unrounded /bAl/ and /bAld/ are frequent in modern Great Lakes accents (Chicago to Rochester), and are preferred female pronunciations there.
Travis   Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:56 am GMT
Not all NCVS dialects have such pronunciations (as I have pointed out before); I myself have "ball" [ˈb̥ɒ(ː)ʊ̯] and "bald" [ˈb̥ɒ(ː)ʊ̯d̥]. But mind you that this rapidly shifts towards unrounded pronunciations as you go south of here, with my mom, from Kenosha, having [ˈb̥ɑ(ː)ɯ̯] and [ˈb̥ɑ(ː)ɯ̯d̥] respectively.
Uriel   Thu Dec 18, 2008 3:31 am GMT
As a cot-caught merged person myself, I find the unmerged pronunciation VERY noticeable (and unusual-sounding). When I hear it on the phone, it always makes me glance at the business address to see if it's on the East Coast -- and clues me in that I need to get my orders in pronto, as they will probably be closing way before I do. (God, how I have grown to hate the tyranny of Eastern Standard Time!)