Horse/Hoarse and Poor/Pour

Shatnerian   Mon Mar 26, 2007 8:12 am GMT
I don't believe that I have ever heard these two sets pronounced in an un-merged dialect. Before I started studying accents and dialects, I was under the impression that they were always merged. I would be interested to know if anyone has an audio clip of the un-merged pronunciations. Which region has the sharpest distinction between the two?
Lazar   Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:13 pm GMT
As for "horse-hoarse", the traditional accent here in Massachusetts makes a very sharp distinction between those word classes. (The distinction is rare among young people here, but it's still relatively common among middle-aged and older people.) In a traditional Massachusetts accent, "hoarse" is ["hO@s]; and "horse" actually uses the merged "cot-caught" vowel, so it's ["hQ:s]. So you get homophones like "lord, laud", both ["lQ:d], and "cord, cod", both ["k_hQ:d].
Lazar   Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:19 pm GMT
I should add that the "poor-pour" distinction is a completely different issue from the "horse-hoarse" distinction, so they really shouldn't be lumped together. I'm horse-hoarse merged, but I distinguish between "poor" ["p_hU@`] and "pour" ["p_hO@`]. I'm under the impression that the "poor-pour" distinction, unlike the "horse-hoarse" distinction, is very common in North America.
Josh Lalonde   Mon Mar 26, 2007 10:14 pm GMT
Yes, unmerged poor-pour is very common in NA; I would say standard. Unmerged horse-hoarse is much less so. However, it is still the norm throughout the Carribean, and I believe is still common in Scotland.
I've uploaded a song to putfile that shows the unmerged forms, but I won't leave it up too long because it's copyrighted. You can clearly hear in the second verse that 'support' and 'throat' rhyme [sapuot] [t_Suot]
http://media.putfile.com/Stop-Dem-Talkin
andre in philly   Tue Mar 27, 2007 1:46 am GMT
I merge poor and pour. Where else in North America does this occur?
Guest   Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:00 am GMT
I'm from California and I merge poor and pour.
Uriel   Tue Mar 27, 2007 3:30 am GMT
I would say pretty much most of the country. I merge both sets of words.
Shatnerian   Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:03 am GMT
I believe most of the Pacific Northwest is pour/poor merged. However, there could be a slight, almost unnoticeable difference between the two with some speakers.

Lazar--is the distinction between horse and hoarse only common among people that are non-rhotic?

Also, I am still a work in progress on this X-Sampa thing. Are there any websites (with audio) that can give me a better idea of how it works entirely?
Sarcastic Northwesterner   Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:47 am GMT
>> I believe most of the Pacific Northwest is pour/poor merged. However, there could be a slight, almost unnoticeable difference between the two with some speakers. <<

Seconded. I'm pretty sure the entire West is merged.
Lazar   Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:52 am GMT
<<Lazar--is the distinction between horse and hoarse only common among people that are non-rhotic?>>

Yeah, round here, non-rhoticity is generally necessary to make the horse-hoarse distinction. (If you're rhotic, then you can't merge "horse" words into [Q:], so it will be harder to make the distinction.)

I'd say that the dialectal continuum here is:

non-rhotic, horse-hoarse unmerged (most conservative) < non-rhotic, horse-hoarse merged < rhotic, horse-hoarse merged (most progressive)

<<Are there any websites (with audio) that can give me a better idea of how it works entirely?>>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA has a chart explaining the whole system.
Travis   Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:48 am GMT
I here in Wisconsin consistently merge "horse" and "hoarse" as ["hORs], but I consistently distinguish "poor" and "pour" as ["p_hu:R] and ["p_hO:R] respectively.
Sho   Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:33 pm GMT
How do pour-poor merged North Americans pronounce "tour"?
I have never heard anyone say the word to rhyme with "four", I have only heard /tu:r/ or something similar to it.
Uriel   Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:24 am GMT
Tours rhymes with Coors.
Josh Lalonde   Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:52 am GMT
<<How do pour-poor merged North Americans pronounce "tour"?
I have never heard anyone say the word to rhyme with "four", I have only heard /tu:r/ or something similar to it.>>

I'm not pour-poor merged, but based on my own observations and what I've read about accents that are, yes, I think they do rhyme "four" and "tour", as /for/ and /tor/ (whether it's realized as [fo:r\],[fO:], [fOr\], etc.)
Guest   Wed Mar 28, 2007 3:03 am GMT
>>Tours rhymes with Coors. <<

And what does "Coors" rhyme with?