An Elusive Development of 'Short o' in Early American English

Abstract

tN LANGxJAGE study, as in most human affairs, the less spectacular devel1 opment is overshadowed by the more spectacular. The EMnE. long vowels, picturesque but comparatively simple in their line of development, have received far more attention than the corresponding short vowels; and among the short vowels it is the genesis of 'broad a' rather than the hidden changes of 'short i' and the correlations between u and o that has proved most alluring to research. 'Short o' is, in fact, a moot case. The fronting of EMnE. o in the direction of [a] is spectacular, muchstudied, still an attractive and outstanding problem of EMnE. phonology.1 But an intricate counter-development, implicit in Pope's rhymc rock / took and in the EMnA. spellings buttom 'bottom,' booge 'boggy,' remains either unrecognized or ignored.2 Yet, if the 18th century grammarians can be trusted, a number of words now pronounced with the reflex-vowels [, , a] of ME. o had formerly a vowel identified with the reflex of ME. u; and if rhymes and spellings can be trusted, their number was surprisingly extensive. The phonological problem implied is less spectacular than baffling. For Modern American English, at least, its results are less important than those dependent upon the change EMnE. o > [a]. Nevertheless, it is high time that a preliminary exploration was attempted. Cursory examination of a few representative grammarians reveals an unexpected wealth of examples. Today, certain speakers of English may have the vowel [A] in among, hovel, plover, pommel, and a few other words nominally of the ME. o class; even in these the spelling-pronunciation is gradually becoming standardized. Yet, in addition to words containing ME. o or AF. u/o before nasals-among, beyond, belong, bomb, bombard, bombast, blomary, combat, comrade, constable, Lombard, long, monger, mongrel, Monmouth, pomado, pommel, yonder, etc.-the late 17th and early 18th century orthoepists commonly list under their short u such words as borage, botago, bottom, chocolate, cochineal, cognisance, colander, collar, coral, hovel, hover, plover, pother, scholar, sovereign,