Canadian Raising

Sarcastic Northwesterner   Thu May 17, 2007 2:30 pm GMT
Interestingly enough, there are also many anomalies around here.

1) Some will pronounce "ride" [r\aId], and "write" [r\@It_}], but both "rider" and "writer" are [r\aI4r\=]. They also cannot distinguish "rider" and "writer", when spoken by someone else.

2) Some people have raising on /aU/ but not on /aI/ e.g. they pronounce "write" as [raIt_}], but house as [h@Us]

3) Some people will pronounce house as [h@Us], and houses as [h@Uz@z]

4) Some people alternate between pronouncing "right" with and without the raising, sometimes in the same sentence. [hiz r\aIt_} r@It_}].

5) Some younger speakers have no raising whatsoever.

Are these found other areas?
Travis   Thu May 17, 2007 6:19 pm GMT
These sorts of anomalies are really not present at all in this area. Rather, the sorts of anomalies in Canadian Raising are cases of raising before /d/ when followed by /@l/ or /o/ in the same morpheme or cases of *non-raising* before a lenis obstruent followed by /@r/, /Ir/, or /r/ in the same morpheme (as while such raising occurs in common words like "spider" and "tiger", it is not consistent in that it does not happen in some words like "visor", "miser", and "fiber").
Josh Lalonde   Thu May 17, 2007 7:49 pm GMT
I'm in Vancouver right now, so I'll try to check out Canadian Raising while I'm here.
andre in philly   Thu May 17, 2007 8:05 pm GMT
Lazar said:<</aI/ raising is quite widespread; I've read personal accounts attesting that it's common at least as far south as New Jersey.>>

Yes, I hear it in New Jersey, and is a feature of Philadelphia English, so that would bring it as far south as northern Delaware. Baltimore probably has it, too. There is no /aU/ raising here, actually the opposite occurs; it's more like /EaU/.