Phoneminization of "ow".

Rodd   Sat Aug 18, 2007 3:01 pm GMT
My "ow!" [aU] and "wow" [waU] don't rhyme with "how" and "now" [hu:] and [nu:]. How thus would they be correctly phonemized?
Skippy   Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:35 pm GMT
Rod, are you from Northern England or Scotland? Those are the only dialects in English I can think of in which ow, how, now, and wow do not rhyme, at least in the manner of [hu:] and [nu:].

If that's the case, then Scotland didn't really experience the GVS so that's why more modern expressions (borrowings from either American or English English) like "ow" and "wow" do not rhyme with "how" and "now."
Rodd   Sat Aug 18, 2007 8:31 pm GMT
<<Do you have /u:/ in words like 'naught', 'aught', or do they have a diphthong more like 'ow' and 'wow'?>>

"naught" and "aught" actually share the vowel in "ow" and "wow".
Rodd   Sat Aug 18, 2007 8:38 pm GMT
Likewise "sauerkraut" [saU.@kraUt] also has this vowel.

<<What's your GOAT?>>

My GOAT is [o:].
Rodd   Sat Aug 18, 2007 8:58 pm GMT
<<I would say that 'wow' and 'ow' should be transcribed with as the same phoneme. Is it something like [QU] or more like [aU]?>>

It is actually more like [aU].
Rodd   Sat Aug 18, 2007 9:43 pm GMT
What about "bought"? I have [boU?] for that, likewise [oU?] for "ought".
Rodd   Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:48 pm GMT
<<That ruins my theory. I thought you had a simple phonemic split of MidEng /u:/ into /aU/ before historic /x/ and /u:/ elsewhere, but 'bought' and 'ought' had /u:x/ in MidEng AFAIK, so I'm not sure how that happened. Do you have any other words with [oU] in them?>>

Yes, "tow", "owe", "brought", "though", "sought", "toll" all have [oU].
Rodd   Sun Aug 19, 2007 2:44 am GMT
"toll" is [toU5], rhyming with "roll" and "poll".
Rodd   Sun Aug 19, 2007 2:50 am GMT
"soul" is another word that rhymes with "toll", "roll" and "poll".
Rodd   Sun Aug 19, 2007 3:40 am GMT
<<So 'thought' for you is [ToU?] right? How about 'law'? Is it [laU]?>>

"thought" is [ToU?] for me and "law" is [laU].

<<Do you use these pronunciations in all situations, or do you ever code-shift into a more standard variety>>

I sometimes do that for certain words.

<<I don't mean any offense, but I expect I would have a hard time understanding you if we ever met.>>

Probably so as I have use of "thou" and "thee" as second person singular pronouns.
Rodd   Sun Aug 19, 2007 3:58 am GMT
I'm originally from Yorkshire.
Travis   Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:30 am GMT
>>OK, well 'tow' and 'owe' had /Ou/ in MidEng, if I'm not mistaken, but 'brought, though, sought' all had /u:x/, and 'toll' had /O/, so I have no idea what's going on. Travis, if you're reading this, want to give it a try?<<

"Brought" is from Old English "brohte" and "broht".
"Taught" is from Old English "tahte" and "taht".
"Sought" is from Old English "sohte" and "soht".

Considering that German has "brachte" /braxt@/ for "brohte" and "suchte" /zUxt@/ for "sohte", I would presume that Old English had short vowels here. The matter is that the vowels. I do not exactly know what happened in these words in Middle English, but I would not be surprised if diphthongization occurred (as represented by the orthography), as diphthongization *did* occur in the word "eight", which was /EIxt/ in Middle English, from Old English "eahta" or "æhta", should have become Early Middle English /E:xta/.

But even then, the expected dipthongs would be /Ou/ for "brought" and "sought" and /au/ for "taught", if the orthography is consistent with Middle English pronunciation ("brought" and "sought" could not have had /u:/ in Middle English). The thing though is that such would have undergone irregular changes since the Middle English period, as such should have then had /oU/ for "brought" and "sought", which would have been inconsistent with present pronunciation. On the other hand, /au/ would have changed into present /O:/ regularly

"Toll" had /O/ in ME, which got raised during the Early New English period to /o:/ before /l/.