Transcription of my speech

asdf   Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:42 am GMT
>> , the far more consistently diphthongal historical /eɪ̯/ and /oʊ̯/ than in the other two <<

From all the articles that I've read about Canadian English, I thought that one of the features of Canadian English was that they have a monophthongal /eɪ̯/ and /oʊ̯/.
Travis   Mon Jan 12, 2009 7:30 am GMT
>>From all the articles that I've read about Canadian English, I thought that one of the features of Canadian English was that they have a monophthongal /eɪ̯/ and /oʊ̯/.<<

Okay, monophthongization of such does show up in many speakers, apparently, even though it is seemingly not as much of a classic feature of Canadian English overall as it is of, say, North Central or Californian English.
asdf   Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:25 am GMT
From William Labov's Linguistic Atlas of North American English Ch 15:
"It will also appear that in other respects, the core areas of Canadian English are quite conservative: the preservation of peripheral, almost monophthongal /ey/ and /ow/, and the back position of /aw/, shared with the North of the United States."
asdf   Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:07 am GMT
>> and some more specific innovations such as /in/ for the present participle ending "-ing"/"-in". <<

But that must exist in both dialects, since this sample had something like that, and you thought it was a North Central dialect.
Travis   Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:53 am GMT
No, it does not exist in both Northwestern and North Central dialects, I just happened to miss it while reading over Lazar's transcription. (And I did not actually follow the audio for most of what I said, as finding phonological features from actually directly listening to audio that is not one's own is quite hard in reality for longer speech, and accurately transcribing someone's else audio on one's own is even harder for such.)
asdf   Thu Jan 15, 2009 5:44 am GMT
Is there a transitional area between the Northwest and North Central dialects, or is there an abrupt switch, like between the North and Midland dialects?
Khu   Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:30 pm GMT
How does the southern part of the Midwest compare to the North Central and Northwestern accents? Is it easy to tell them apart?
Travis   Mon Jan 19, 2009 6:58 am GMT
>>How does the southern part of the Midwest compare to the North Central and Northwestern accents? Is it easy to tell them apart?<<

For starters, do you mean the Lower Midwest here, or the Inland North (much of which is part of the Upper Midwest) in opposition to the North Central region? This is an important question, as drastically different dialects are found in the Lower Midwest and the Inland North regions today.
Travis   Mon Jan 19, 2009 7:00 am GMT
>>Is there a transitional area between the Northwest and North Central dialects, or is there an abrupt switch, like between the North and Midland dialects?<<

There is no abrupt switch between the two, from what I know, there being more of a gradual transition from North Central dialects to the northernmost Western dialects to the Northwest dialects, from what I have gathered. Of course, I cannot say much more about such.
Khu   Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:46 pm GMT
>> For starters, do you mean the Lower Midwest here, or the Inland North (much of which is part of the Upper Midwest) in opposition to the North Central region? <<

I meant the Lower Midwest.
Travis   Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:59 pm GMT
I would say that the dialects spoken in the Lower Midwest, which can largely be categorized as Midland dialects, probably differ more from the dialects spoken in the North Central and Northwest regions than the two differ from each other. For starters, Midland dialects in many ways are much closer to the classic General American than North Central and Northwestern dialects, which have things like mid vowel monophthongization and Canadian Raising, while at the same time having non-negligible Southern influence that does not exist in North Central and Northwestern dialects, such as the pin-pen merger. I really cannot pin it down further at the very moment, though, as I am busy at the moment.