Abstract
AbstractThis study describes prevelar merger, the raising of low-front /æ, ɛ/ and lowering of mid-front /e/ before the voiced velar /ɡ/, in Seattle, Washington. In the most advanced part of this change in progress, all twenty speakers (age 18–62, half men, half women, all white) produced /ɛɡ/ and /eɡ/ (beg, vague) as upgliding diphthongs merged in F1 and F2 directly between their nonprevelar counterparts (dress, face). /æɡ/ (bag) was also diphthongal, but its height varied between speakers, with middle-aged men showing near-complete three-way merger with beg-vague and younger speakers raising less, suggesting reversal or avoidance of this component. Previous work lacked information about vague and thus described bag- and beg-raising as failing to reach the height of nonprevelar face. This study revealed that vague is lowered, creating a merger target for both raised beg and bag within a separate diphthongal prevelar subsystem.
Highlights
The focus of this study is prevelar merger in two generations of white Seattleites
Prevelar merger is a combination of prevelar raising, the raising of the low front vowels =æ, ɛ= (TRAP, DRESS classes) before voiced velars, and the previously understudied lowering of mid front =e= (FACE class) before the voiced velar =ɡ= (VAGUE-lowering)
The current study addresses this issue by proposing that the target for merger is not FACE but prevelar VAGUE
Summary
The focus of this study is prevelar merger in two generations of white Seattleites. Prevelar merger is a combination of prevelar raising, the raising of the low front vowels =æ, ɛ= (TRAP, DRESS classes) before voiced velars ( called BAG-raising and BEG-raising), and the previously understudied lowering of mid front =e= (FACE class) before the voiced velar =ɡ= (VAGUE-lowering). In the Atlas of North American English, Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006:181–4) reported phonetic raising of BAG toward FACE in areas across the American north and into Canada, to the extent of merger with VAGUE in the Wisconsin-Minnesota area of the Upper Midwest. Bauer and Parker (2008) and Benson, Fox, and Balkman (2011) challenged the notion that raised BAG was merged with nonprevelar DRESS or FACE in Wisconsin. Both studies included duration and formant measures at multiple time points, finding that the formant distributions of BAG often overlapped those of DRESS or even FACE at some points but not throughout their durations. In regions where both occur, they are likely related processes (Wassink & Riebold, 2013), as in the Pacific Northwest
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