Talk:Phonological history of English vowels

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[edit] Moved from the old Talk:Tense-lax neutralization page

Re: In most varieties of English, this occurs in particular before /ŋ/ …

How is ‘most’ defined in this context? I was of the impression that this was a feature limited to (Nth?) American English. Of course, I think they make up the majority of English speakers...

— Felix the Cassowary 14:12, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I think what is being referred to is the lack of a contrast between, say /i:/ and /I/ before /ŋ/. In my dialect (northern England, mild accent but not quite RP), /ŋ/ usually only occurs after the "lax" vowels /a/ (bang), /E/ (length), /I/ (sing), /Q/ (song), /V/ (sung), /U/ (Chung); it doesn't occur after the "tense" or "long" vowels, though it can occur after /OI/ (boing).

I'm not sure about the reference to TLN before /ʃ/ and /g/, though, or before /r/ in non-American rhotic accents: I believe Scottish English typically has the same set of contrasts before /r/ as it does everywhere else.--JHJ 16:32, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Some Americans have reported pronouncing 'bang' as /beiŋ/, -ing as -eeng, and rhyme 'bag' and 'vague'; I assumed he was talking about that. As for the fact that in most dialects you don't get /ŋ/ after lax vowels, that's because of the baggage the language comes with. It's not tense-lax neutralisation though. — Felix the Cassowary 00:03, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it's a merger of /eɪ/ and /ɛ/ before /g/. My speech has this merger ('beg' and 'vague' rhyme, at least sometimes), so I added an example of this to the page. I also added an example of the same merger before /ʃ/, but I don't have this merger, so I'm not sure if I have it right. Someone can remove if they don't think it's real. I can, however, vouch for the former being very much real. Nohat 07:35, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Ah, of course, lax counterpart of /ei/ is /ɛ/, so that makes more sense. Thanks! It's always amazing what English dialects will do :) — Felix the Cassowary 12:41, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cot-cut merger

I've removed the following.

The cot-cut merger is a phonominum occurring in Cameroon English where the phonemes /Q/ and /ʌ/ are not distinguished. As a result, pairs like "cot" and "cut", "fond" and "fund" etc. are homophones. /Q/ and /ʌ/ also generally merge with /ɔ/ in Cameroon English, resulting in the words "cot", "cut" and "cord" (with a devoiced /d/) being homophones. {1996 Loreso [sic: Do you mean "Loreto"?] Todd and Ian Hancock}

The reason was that the reference does not include the title and publisher of the book/article. Someone please provide a full reference. Note also that this section needs spell-checking and coversion to IPA. --Jimp 01:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)