Boston short o?

Josh Lalonde   Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:06 pm GMT
I was reading about American accents yesterday, and several books mentioned something about the "short o" sound in Boston, which they transcribed as /8/ (actually /ɵ/, a barred o, in case you can't see it). I don't really know quite what they meant, or where and when it occurs/occurred. Anyone have any idea (Lazar especially)?
SpaceFlight   Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:15 pm GMT
<<the "short o" sound in Boston, which they transcribed as /8/ (actually /ɵ/, a barred o, in case you can't see it). I don't really know quite what they meant, or where and when it occurs/occurred>>

By the "short o" sound, they probably meant the "o" sound in "not", "shot", "cod" etc. Eastern New England lacks the father-bother merger which occurs in the rest of North America. Perhaps the "bother" vowel can be realized as [8] sometimes, but I know Lazar has [Q] for it.
Lazar   Sat Mar 10, 2007 3:40 am GMT
I'd have to say that those books are mistaken, because [8] sounds nothing like what's used here in the Boston-Worcester area. The cot-caught vowel here is [Q:], which is very open, and contrasts very clearly with non-rhotic [O@].

This resource ( http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/course/chapter1/vowels.html ) is very good when I want to practice producing different vowels, and their [8] would just sound completely out of place as a cot-caught vowel here.

Just to clarify the vowel distribution:

Non-rhotic, horse-hoarse unmerged (a minority, mostly middle-aged or older people):

cot ["k_hQ:t]
caught ["k_hQ:t]
horse ["hQ:s]
hoarse ["hO@s]

Non-rhotic, horse-hoarse merged (much more common nowadays):

cot ["k_hQ:t]
caught ["k_hQ:t]
horse ["hO@s]
hoarse ["hO@s]

Rhotic, horse-hoarse merged (another common variant, mostly in suburban areas; what I am):

cot ["k_hQ:t]
caught ["k_hQ:t]
horse ["hO@`s]
hoarse ["hO@`s]
Josh Lalonde   Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:24 pm GMT
It certainly sounded strange to me too. I wonder if they were using a different system of transcription where /ɵ/ is /Q/? But it seemed to indicate that this pronunciation was receeding, and they were old books too, so that makes identifying it with /Q/ unlikely. They must just have been mistaken, but I'm still interested in what exactly they meant by that. I suppose it's just a mystery.
Levee   Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:09 pm GMT
The "short o of Boston" does not refer to the sounds of LOT or THOUGHT words. In the traditional dialect of Eastern New England, there was a split affecting the GOAT lexical set of words, so in some of them a short centralized rounded mid back vowel was used instead of [O(U)]. Such a word was, e.g. "road", which was pronounced as [rO_"d]. I don't know to what, if any, extent is this found in the present-day speech of the area.
Guest   Mon Nov 05, 2007 2:34 am GMT
Why is that all actors from Boston use /A/ in LOT/THOUGHT words?
Is it a Hollywood influence?
Lo   Wed Nov 07, 2007 12:44 am GMT
<<Why is that all actors from Boston use /A/ in LOT/THOUGHT words?
Is it a Hollywood influence?>>

Most likely, traditionally eastern New England accents (which includes Boston) would use /Q/ for those words sounding [lQt¬] and [TQt¬]