Transcription of my speech

Travis   Sat Jan 03, 2009 7:52 pm GMT
>>So it must be a Boston accent then because of the rounded cot-caught vowel.<<

No, because these days it is quite common to hear cot-caught-merged dialects with a degree of rounding of the merged cot-caught vowel. Specifically, this is found in more progressive Californian English and Canadian English dialects, but this seems to also be spreading eastward from California...
Khu   Sat Jan 03, 2009 9:14 pm GMT
So what kind of accent do you think it is then if it's not Massachusetts?
Travis   Sat Jan 03, 2009 9:30 pm GMT
One potential guess offhand on my part is the monophthongal historical /eɪ̯/ and /oʊ̯/, which largely imply either the Upper Midwest or California. The particular cot-caught vowel would to me also imply California. The only problem, though, is that from what I have gathered it seems that allophonic vowel length is the normal vowel quantity system in California today; on the other hand, there are parts of the Upper Midwest which still have historical phonemic vowel length. Likewise, the elision of /t/ and /d/ strongly implies the Upper Midwest in this case. Consequently my first guess here, without any other information, would be that this is a North Central NAE dialect with some Canadian Shirt having leaked in.
Travis   Sat Jan 03, 2009 9:31 pm GMT
That should be "Canadian Shift" above.
Khu   Sat Jan 03, 2009 10:17 pm GMT
>> would be that this is a North Central NAE dialect with some Canadian Shift having leaked in. <<

I don't think so. I saw the movie Fargo, and this doesn't sound like that accent to me.
Lazar   Sun Jan 04, 2009 12:04 am GMT
<<So it must be a Boston accent then because of the rounded cot-caught vowel.>>

Not at all - as Travis notes, there are many accents outside of New England that have a rounded cot-caught vowel. The speaker definitely does not have a Boston accent.

<<I don't think so. I saw the movie Fargo, and this doesn't sound like that accent to me.>>

You can't analyze accents based on exaggerated (and fake) movie depictions. Travis is from Wisconsin, so I think he has a pretty good awareness of Upper Midwest accents.
Khu   Sun Jan 04, 2009 12:43 am GMT
>> the particular cot-caught vowel would to me also imply California. The only problem, though, is that from what I have gathered it seems that allophonic vowel length is the normal vowel quantity system in California today; on the other hand, there are parts of the Upper Midwest which still have historical phonemic vowel length. <<

I'm really bad with listening to vowel length. I thought that all forms of American English had allophonic vowel length. So, assuming that the sample is an Upper Midwestern dialect, can you give me some examples of how the vowel length in the recording differs from California English (which you say has allophonic vowel length.)
Travis   Sun Jan 04, 2009 1:29 am GMT
>><<I don't think so. I saw the movie Fargo, and this doesn't sound like that accent to me.>>

You can't analyze accents based on exaggerated (and fake) movie depictions. Travis is from Wisconsin, so I think he has a pretty good awareness of Upper Midwest accents.<<

My awareness of such is actually, honestly, not as good as you might think. The reason is that the only areas I have ever actually really lived in are Milwaukee and Madison, and even living in Madison does not give as a good idea of the dialect native to Dane county as one might think as it brings in lots of students from other parts of the Upper Midwest, and especially Milwaukee, and a certain portion of these students decide to stay there after they are done with school. And then, the only other part of the state that I really have got that much opportunity to interact with "the natives" at is Kenosha, and that is because much of my mom's family lives there.

That said, though, there are certain impressions I have gotten from talking to people in other parts of the state. I remember being in Minocqua, and at least the people I have talked to there who actually worked there did speak the "Up North" dialect, albeit not to the stereotypical degree one may think of. Then there was Green Bay - the people there actually really weirded me out, because they spoke invariably very carefully in what was a very clear and conservative Upper Midwest dialect, while me and my now-fiancée spoke in a comparatively extremely thick Milwaukee dialect in front of them... Then on this one reservation about 45 minutes from Green Bay, I really was not sure of what to make of the English dialect spoken there, except that it just oozed substratum influence from whatever language the people who were now living there had spoke before they spoken English...

Everything said, the general impression of the Upper Midwest I get Wisconsin outside of southeastern Wisconsin and the Madison area is that is really is not as much like that spoken here in Milwaukee as one might think. If anything, I get the impression that it is these days largely a set of basically quite conservative NAE dialects, aside from generally having mid-high vowel monophthongization, which differ largely with respect to things like degree of substratum influence, and degree of encroachment from the cot-caught merger and the NCVS.

>>>> the particular cot-caught vowel would to me also imply California. The only problem, though, is that from what I have gathered it seems that allophonic vowel length is the normal vowel quantity system in California today; on the other hand, there are parts of the Upper Midwest which still have historical phonemic vowel length. <<

I'm really bad with listening to vowel length. I thought that all forms of American English had allophonic vowel length. So, assuming that the sample is an Upper Midwestern dialect, can you give me some examples of how the vowel length in the recording differs from California English (which you say has allophonic vowel length.)<<

For starters, Upper Midwestern dialects are not consistent in vowel quantity; for instance, my dialect here in Milwaukee has allophonic vowel quantity in conservative analyses (but a new phonemic vowel quantity in the most radical analyses), whereas TaylorS's dialect up in Fargo has phonemic vowel quantity.
Khu   Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:02 am GMT
>> For starters, Upper Midwestern dialects are not consistent in vowel quantity; for instance, my dialect here in Milwaukee has allophonic vowel quantity in conservative analyses (but a new phonemic vowel quantity in the most radical analyses), whereas TaylorS's dialect up in Fargo has phonemic vowel quantity. <<

So does the sample have this as well? In which words?
Travis   Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:31 am GMT
The sample had phonemic vowel quantity overall, rather than just in particular words.
Khu   Sun Jan 04, 2009 3:45 am GMT
>> The sample had phonemic vowel quantity overall, rather than just in particular words. <<

Hmm. I'm not 100% sure what that means.
Travis   Sun Jan 04, 2009 7:40 am GMT
>>>> The sample had phonemic vowel quantity overall, rather than just in particular words. <<

Hmm. I'm not 100% sure what that means.<<

Okay, the matter is that there is three fundamental systems of vowel quantity found in English as a while, specifically phonemic vowel length, allophonic vowel length, and a system found in between in Scottish English (along with Scots) called the Scottish Vowel Length Rule, which has aspects of both. Obviously in this case, the SVLR does not apply, as we are speaking of North American English dialects.

In phonemic vowel length, each vowel phoneme has an inherent length (or lack thereof), even though it may be modified by a degree of added allophonic vowel length.

In allophonic vowel length without phonemic vowel length, vowel phonemes have no inherent length, and rather their realized length is determined by some rule that determines their length by environment. In English, such a rule is almost invariably tied to the fortisness/lenisness (aka voicing) or absence of a following consonant or obstruent, even though the specifics of such do vary between dialects.
Khu   Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:58 pm GMT
So is this an example of that? "ɹe:nˌdɹɒ:ps"

So with the allophonic vowel length it would be [dɹɒps], right? Because a voiceless sound follows? So therefore it has the phonemic vowel length.
Khu   Sun Jan 04, 2009 4:42 pm GMT
Also, I was reading an article on the difference in the amount of fronting of /u/ and /o/ in different dialects. How fronted would you say that this speaker has? To me they sound rather back, but I'm not very good at hearing things like that.
Travis   Sun Jan 04, 2009 9:33 pm GMT
>>So is this an example of that? "ɹe:nˌdɹɒ:ps"

So with the allophonic vowel length it would be [dɹɒps], right? Because a voiceless sound follows? So therefore it has the phonemic vowel length.<<

Yes. It may be confusing, though, when sonorants are involved, as in some dialects (such as conservative analyses of my own) sonorant phonemes are basically ignored by allophonic vowel length, whereas in others they are treated as lenis (aka voiced) consonant phonemes themselves.