Phonological history of English open back vowels
The phonology of the open back vowels of the English language has undergone changes both overall and with regional variations, through Old and Middle English to the present. The sounds heard in modern English were significantly influenced by the Great Vowel Shift, as well as more recent developments such as the cot–caught merger.
Overview
Old and Middle English
In the Old English vowel system, the vowels in the open back area were unrounded:. There were also rounded back vowels of mid-height:. The corresponding spellings were and, with the length distinctions not normally marked; in modern editions of Old English texts, the long vowels are often written,.As the Old English system developed into that of Middle English, the OE short vowel merged with the fronted to become a more central ME. Meanwhile, the OE long vowel was rounded and raised to ME. OE short remained relatively unchanged, becoming a short ME vowel regarded as, while OE long became ME . Alternative developments were also possible; see English historical vowel correspondences for details.
Later, ME open syllable lengthening caused the short vowel to be normally changed to in open syllables. Remaining instances of the short vowel also tended to become lower. Hence in Late Middle English the following open back vowels were present, distinguished by length:
- , spelt, as in dog, god
- , often spelt, or before consonant+vowel or certain consonant pairs, as in boat, whole, old
16th-century changes
- The long vowel of boat had been raised to as a result of the Great Vowel Shift. Before non-prevocalic, the raising did not take place, so more was still.
- The diphthong found in words such as cause, law, all, salt, psalm, half, change, chamber, dance had become an open back monophthong
- At this time, the short in dog was lowered to
- as in lot
- as in cause and in more
- as in low
17th-century changes
- The diphthong of soul was raised to, and then monophthongized to, merging with boat. Before, this change was later undone by the horse–hoarse merger except in some varieties, as currently seen in Irish English, Scottish English and African American Vernacular English.
- Short was retracted and rounded to. The shift was suppressed before a velar consonant, as in quack, twang, wag, wax, and also was suppressed in swam. The change of to did not occur in Mid-Ulster English.
- had begun to partake in lengthening and raising before a nonprevocalic voiceless fricative. That resulted in words like broth, cost and off having instead of, and was the start of the split.
- In words such as change and chamber, the pronunciation was gradually replaced in the standard language by a variant with, derived from Middle English. That explains the contemporary pronunciation of these words with.
- However, when preceded, as in laugh, and half, was shifted to instead, derived from Middle English.
- An unrounded back vowel developed, found in certain classes of words that had previously had, like start, father and palm.
- in lot and want.
- in more, cause, and corn.
- in cloth and cost.
- in start, father and palm.
Later changes
- The three-way distinction between,, and was simplified in one of two ways:
- * In General American and old-fashioned RP, was raised to, merging with the vowel in .
- * In many accents of England, the lengthening of the set was undone, restoring the short pronunciation. This became standard RP by the mid-20th century.
- In General American, the lot vowel has become unrounded and merged into .
- in lot, want, cloth, and cost.
- in more, cause, and corn.
- in start, father, and palm.
- in lot, want, start, father, and palm.
- in more, cause, corn, cloth and cost.
Lexical set | Example words | Change | GenAm phonemes | Minimal pairs | IPA | Change | Cot-Caught merger dialects |
ah, father, spa | Father-bother merger | cot, collar, stock, wok, chock, Don | ,,, ,, | Cot–caught merger | ,,, ,, | ||
bother, lot, wasp | Father-bother merger | cot, collar, stock, wok, chock, Don | ,,, ,, | Cot–caught merger | ,,, ,, | ||
boss, cloth, dog, off | Cloth-thought merger | caught, caller, stalk, walk, chalk, dawn | ,,, ,, | Cot–caught merger | ,,, ,, | ||
all, thought, flaunt | Cloth-thought merger | caught, caller, stalk, walk, chalk, dawn | ,,, ,, | Cot–caught merger | ,,, ,, |
Unrounded
In a few varieties of English, the vowel in lot is unrounded, pronounced toward . This is found in the following dialects:- Irish English
- Much of the Caribbean
- Norwich
- The West Country and the West Midlands of England
- Most of North American English
- * Excluding Boston and Western Pennsylvania accents, in which it is typically raised toward, merging with the vowel in thought.
In such accents, lot typically is pronounced as, therefore being kept distinct from the vowel in palm, pronounced or. However, the major exception to this is North American English, where the vowel is lengthened to merge with the vowel in palm, as described below. This merger is called the merger or more commonly the father–bother merger.
''Father–bother'' merger
The father–bother merger is unrounded lot taken a step further. On top of being unrounded, the length distinction between the vowel in lot and bother and the vowel in palm and father is lost, so that the two groups merge.Examples of possible homophones resulting from the merger include Khan and con as well as Saab and sob.
Out of North American dialects that have unrounded lot, the only notable exception to the merger is New York City English, where the opposition with the -type vowel is somewhat tenuous.
While the accents in northeastern New England, such as the Boston accent, also remain unmerged, lot remains rounded and merges instead with cloth and thought, though the outcome of that is still a longish free vowel that is heard as thought by British speakers.
split
The split is the result of a late 17th-century sound change that lengthened to before voiceless fricatives, and also before in the word gone. It was ultimately raised and merged with of words like thought, although in some accents that vowel is actually open. The sound change is most consistent in the last syllable of a word, and much less so elsewhere. Some words that entered the language later, especially when used more in writing than speech, are exempt from the lengthening, e.g. joss and Goth with the short vowel. Similar changes took place in words with ; see trap–bath split and /æ/-tensing.The cot–caught merger, discussed below, has removed the distinction in some dialects.
As a result of the lengthening and raising, in the above-mentioned accents cross rhymes with sauce, and soft and cloth also have the vowel. Accents affected by this change include American English and, originally, RP, although today words of this group almost always have short in RP. The split still exists in some older RP speakers, including Queen Elizabeth II.
The lengthening and raising generally happened before the fricatives, and. In American English the raising was extended to the environment before and, and in a few words before as well, giving pronunciations like for long, for dog and for chocolate.
In the varieties of American English that have the lot–cloth split, the lot vowel is usually symbolized as, often called the "short o", and the cloth vowel as, often called the "open o". The actual pronunciation of these vowels may vary somewhat from the symbol used to denote them; e.g. is often pronounced closer to an open back rounded vowel, and is sometimes fronted to an open central vowel. Some words vary as to which vowel they have. For example, words that end in -og like frog, hog, fog, log, bog etc. have rather than in some accents.
There are also significant complexities in the pronunciation of written o occurring before one of the triggering phonemes in a non-final syllable. However, the use of the open o as opposed to the short o is largely predictable. Just like with /æ/-tensing and the trap–bath split, there seems to be an open-syllable constraint. Namely, the change did not affect words with /ɑ/ in open syllables unless they were closely derived from words with in close syllables. Hence occurs in crossing, crosser, crosses because it occurs in cross; likewise in longing, longer, longest because it occurs in long. However, possible, jostle, impostor, profit, Gothic, bongo, Congo, and boggle all have. However, there are still exceptions in words like Boston and foster. A further list of words is mentioned in the table below:
Set | Rounded | Unrounded |
all words in this set | ||
loss, boss, etc. | possible, jostle | |
Boston, foster, lost, etc. | roster | |
long, longest, etc. | bongo, Congo |
Some words may vary depending on the speaker like. Meanwhile, other words vary by region. For example, in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. dialect, most famously spoken in metropolitan Philadelphia and Baltimore, the single word on has the same vowel as dawn, but not the same vowel as don etc.. Labov et al. regard this phenomenon as occurring not just in the Mid-Atlantic region, but in all regions south of a geographic boundary that they identify as the ON line, which is significant because it distinguishes most varieties of Northern American English from most varieties of Midland and Southern American English.
''Cot–caught'' merger
The cot–caught merger is a phonemic merger occurring in many English accents, where the vowel sound in words like cot, nod, and stock, has merged with that of caught, gnawed, and stalk. For example, with the merger, cot and caught become perfect homophones.Other changes
split
In some London accents of English, the vowel in words such as thought, force, and north, which merged earlier on in these varieties of English, undergoes a conditional split based on syllable structure: closed syllables have a higher vowel quality such as , and open syllables have a lower vowel quality or a centering diphthong.Originally-open syllables with an inflectional suffix retain the lower vowel quality, creating minimal pairs such as bored vs. board.
In broad Geordie, some words have instead of the standard. Those are the traditional dialect forms which are being replaced with the standard. is therefore not necessarily a distinct phoneme in the vowel system of Geordie, also because it occurs as an allophone of before voiced consonants.
merger
The merger is a merger of the English vowels and . It occurs in certain non-rhotic varieties of British English, such as Bradford English and Geordie. It has also been reported as a possibility in some Northern Welsh accents.It is more accurately called the merger.
IPA | ||
awe | O | |
awe | oh | |
awe | owe | |
awn | own | |
boar | beau | |
boar | bow | |
bore | beau | |
bore | bow | |
caught | coat | |
court | coat | |
door | doe | |
door | dough | |
doors | does | |
doors | doughs | |
doors | doze | |
haul | hole | |
law | low | |
lawn | loan | |
lawn | lone | |
naught | note | |
nor | know | |
nor | no | |
nought | note | |
oar | O | |
oar | oh | |
oar | owe | |
or | O | |
or | oh | |
or | owe | |
ought | oat | |
Paul | pole, Pole | |
Paul | poll | |
roar | row | |
roars | rose | |
roars | rows | |
saw | sew | |
saw | so | |
saw | sow | |
soar | sew | |
soar | so | |
soar | sow | |
sore | sew | |
sore | so | |
sore | sow | |
tore | toe | |
tore | tow |
Distribution of /ɑː/
The distribution of the vowel transcribed with in broad IPA varies greatly among dialects. It corresponds to,, and and even in other dialects:- In some words, the vowel is in all dialects except traditional Norfolk, where is used instead. In Norfolk, is the vowel that contrasts with and .
- In non-rhotic dialects spoken outside of North America, corresponds mostly to in General American and so is most often spelled. In dialects with the trap–bath split, it also corresponds to GA, which means that it can also be spelled before voiceless fricatives. In those dialects, and are separate phonemes.
- In native words, in most non-rhotic speech of North America corresponds to both in GA and in RP, as those dialects feature the father–bother merger.
- In GA, mostly corresponds to in RP.
- In the traditional Norfolk dialect, corresponds to RP, whereas the vowel corresponding to RP is.
- Many speakers in the US and most speakers in Canada use not only for RP but also for. Those dialects have the cot–caught merger in addition to the father-bother merger.
- In loanwords, the open central unrounded vowel in the source language is regularly approximated with in North America and in RP. However, in the case of mid back rounded vowels spelled, the usual North American approximation is, not . However, when the vowel is both stressed and word-final, the only possibilities in RP are in the first case and in the latter case, mirroring GA.