Is anyone out there (I mean a native speaker) who pronounces words like horse-hoarse, war-wore, morning-mourning etc. DIFFERENTLY? If so, would you please be so kind as to show us a recording of your pronunciation of such word-pairs?
Horse-hoarse unmerged speaker wanted
There are quite a few horse-hoarse unmerged speakers here in the Worcester-Boston-Providence area, but they tend to be middle aged or older. Most younger speakers have the merger, even non-rhotic ones.
The interesting thing is that in the traditional unmerged accent here, the "horse" set uses the merged "cot-caught" vowel, yielding this:
father ['fa:ðə]
bother ['bɒ:ðə]
cot ['kʰɒ:t]
caught ['kʰɒ:t]
horse ['hɒ:s]
hoarse ['hɔəs]
The interesting thing is that in the traditional unmerged accent here, the "horse" set uses the merged "cot-caught" vowel, yielding this:
father ['fa:ðə]
bother ['bɒ:ðə]
cot ['kʰɒ:t]
caught ['kʰɒ:t]
horse ['hɒ:s]
hoarse ['hɔəs]
Thanks Lazar, I know that, but what I'm especially interested in is HEARING a rhotic speaker pronounce these words differently, especially if they don't have a very strong local accent (like Boston, Gulf, St. Louis etc.). So basically it's conservative GA pronunciation what I am looking for. I know there are still many speakers in the Mid-West who talk like that (although they are only a small percentage of the whole population).
But it would be also nice if someone from Scotland or Boston etc. would demonstrate the distinction.
But it would be also nice if someone from Scotland or Boston etc. would demonstrate the distinction.
I don't think that even conservative GA lacks the horse-hoarse merger. Rather, such is primarily present in the US in more conservative forms of some Northeastern and Southern dialects; it should be noted here that GA is based off of conservative Lower Midwestern dialects to begin with.
"I don't think that even conservative GA lacks the horse-hoarse merger."
"...in the words of the following group, (...) usage varies:
II. (1) Afford, board, boarder, (...) tore, wore, yore.
In the cultivated speech of south England, and by some speakers in (...) New York City and vicinity, these words are pronounced with the >>O<< sound of the word >>all<<. But by the majority of Americans elsewhere, by most Canadians, (...) the words in Group II are pronounced with >>or<<, >>o@<<.
(...)
I have no hesitation in designating the distinction of vowel between >>mourning<< and >>morning<< as prevailing American pronunciation.
(...)
With many speakers of the younger generation the two groups of words have fallen together (...). Their sound is clearly not the sound >>or<< heard from the speakers who still maintain the old distinction; but it is equally clear that it is not >>Or<< with the sound of >>O<< as in >>all<<.
Regions where the two groups of words (...) are pronounced alike (...) are found in southern New Jersey, northern Delaware, most of Maryland west of Chesapeake Bay, and probably also Philadelphia and vicinity."
(...)
The tendency to identify the two groups of words is recent both in England and America."
J.S. Kenyon: American Pronunciation [1950], pp. 229-231.
Also see: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch08_2nd.rev.pdf
(page 52.)
http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~anth383/lexicalsets.html
"it should be noted here that GA is based off of conservative Lower Midwestern dialects to begin with"
Really? Why not Upper Midwestern instead?
"...in the words of the following group, (...) usage varies:
II. (1) Afford, board, boarder, (...) tore, wore, yore.
In the cultivated speech of south England, and by some speakers in (...) New York City and vicinity, these words are pronounced with the >>O<< sound of the word >>all<<. But by the majority of Americans elsewhere, by most Canadians, (...) the words in Group II are pronounced with >>or<<, >>o@<<.
(...)
I have no hesitation in designating the distinction of vowel between >>mourning<< and >>morning<< as prevailing American pronunciation.
(...)
With many speakers of the younger generation the two groups of words have fallen together (...). Their sound is clearly not the sound >>or<< heard from the speakers who still maintain the old distinction; but it is equally clear that it is not >>Or<< with the sound of >>O<< as in >>all<<.
Regions where the two groups of words (...) are pronounced alike (...) are found in southern New Jersey, northern Delaware, most of Maryland west of Chesapeake Bay, and probably also Philadelphia and vicinity."
(...)
The tendency to identify the two groups of words is recent both in England and America."
J.S. Kenyon: American Pronunciation [1950], pp. 229-231.
Also see: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch08_2nd.rev.pdf
(page 52.)
http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~anth383/lexicalsets.html
"it should be noted here that GA is based off of conservative Lower Midwestern dialects to begin with"
Really? Why not Upper Midwestern instead?
Upper Midwestern dialects have a significant degree of non-English Germanic influence which does not exist at all in GA, and also acquired at least inconsistent Canadian Raising of historical /aɪ̯/ by the early post-WW2 period. As to why General American was based off of Lower Midwestern rather than Upper Midwestern dialects, it should be noted that there probably was more people speaking the former rather than the latter, the former were more conservative than the latter, the former had less internal variation than the latter, and the former were less "marked" than the latter as a whole.
"Upper Midwestern dialects have a significant degree of non-English Germanic influence"
Such as?
"and also acquired at least inconsistent Canadian Raising of historical /aɪ̯/ by the early post-WW2 period"
Yes, but the idea of GA was created way before WW2
"As to why General American was based off of Lower Midwestern rather than Upper Midwestern dialects"
What I'm trying to say is that I think it's the other way round. GA was basically based on the speech of all the areas which were neither Southern not Northeastern, but if it was influenced by a narrower region than it was the rural Upper Midwest.
"the former were more conservative than the latter, the former had less internal variation than the latter, and the former were less "marked" than the latter as a whole"
???
I don't know what you're talking about.
Such as?
"and also acquired at least inconsistent Canadian Raising of historical /aɪ̯/ by the early post-WW2 period"
Yes, but the idea of GA was created way before WW2
"As to why General American was based off of Lower Midwestern rather than Upper Midwestern dialects"
What I'm trying to say is that I think it's the other way round. GA was basically based on the speech of all the areas which were neither Southern not Northeastern, but if it was influenced by a narrower region than it was the rural Upper Midwest.
"the former were more conservative than the latter, the former had less internal variation than the latter, and the former were less "marked" than the latter as a whole"
???
I don't know what you're talking about.
>>"Upper Midwestern dialects have a significant degree of non-English Germanic influence"
Such as?<<
Germanic languages such as German and Norwegian have had a non-negligible degree of influence upon pronunciation in the Upper Midwest (particularly with respect to mid and high back vowels), and also contributed borrowed forms and usages such as "come with" and the use of "by" to mean "at", as well as individual words like "yah".
>>"and also acquired at least inconsistent Canadian Raising of historical /aɪ̯/ by the early post-WW2 period"
Yes, but the idea of GA was created way before WW2<<
Acrolectal English in the US was Northeastern-based and rather RP-like until the end of WW2. Have you ever heard recordings of individuals such as, say, FDR spoke?
>>"As to why General American was based off of Lower Midwestern rather than Upper Midwestern dialects"
What I'm trying to say is that I think it's the other way round. GA was basically based on the speech of all the areas which were neither Southern not Northeastern, but if it was influenced by a narrower region than it was the rural Upper Midwest.<<
For starters, by "Upper Midwest" I am specifically referring to areas like Wisconsin, Minnesota, northern Illinois, Michigan, and North Dakota here. People in that area still have notable non-GA features which are non-progressive in nature, and I doubt that they spoke in a *more* GA-like fashion around the time my grandparents grew up (especially since languages other than English here weren't even dead yet then, and for that matter survived the longest in rural areas here). Have you even been in, say, rural Wisconsin or Minnesota, and especially the northern Upper Midwest?
>>"the former were more conservative than the latter, the former had less internal variation than the latter, and the former were less "marked" than the latter as a whole"
???
I don't know what you're talking about.<<
I am talking about substratum influence upon Upper Midwestern dialects which did not exist in Lower Midwestern dialects, and internal variation with respect to such substratum influence (as different groups affected speech differently in different areas in Wisconsin, Minnesota, northern Illinois, North Dakota, and Michigan).
Such as?<<
Germanic languages such as German and Norwegian have had a non-negligible degree of influence upon pronunciation in the Upper Midwest (particularly with respect to mid and high back vowels), and also contributed borrowed forms and usages such as "come with" and the use of "by" to mean "at", as well as individual words like "yah".
>>"and also acquired at least inconsistent Canadian Raising of historical /aɪ̯/ by the early post-WW2 period"
Yes, but the idea of GA was created way before WW2<<
Acrolectal English in the US was Northeastern-based and rather RP-like until the end of WW2. Have you ever heard recordings of individuals such as, say, FDR spoke?
>>"As to why General American was based off of Lower Midwestern rather than Upper Midwestern dialects"
What I'm trying to say is that I think it's the other way round. GA was basically based on the speech of all the areas which were neither Southern not Northeastern, but if it was influenced by a narrower region than it was the rural Upper Midwest.<<
For starters, by "Upper Midwest" I am specifically referring to areas like Wisconsin, Minnesota, northern Illinois, Michigan, and North Dakota here. People in that area still have notable non-GA features which are non-progressive in nature, and I doubt that they spoke in a *more* GA-like fashion around the time my grandparents grew up (especially since languages other than English here weren't even dead yet then, and for that matter survived the longest in rural areas here). Have you even been in, say, rural Wisconsin or Minnesota, and especially the northern Upper Midwest?
>>"the former were more conservative than the latter, the former had less internal variation than the latter, and the former were less "marked" than the latter as a whole"
???
I don't know what you're talking about.<<
I am talking about substratum influence upon Upper Midwestern dialects which did not exist in Lower Midwestern dialects, and internal variation with respect to such substratum influence (as different groups affected speech differently in different areas in Wisconsin, Minnesota, northern Illinois, North Dakota, and Michigan).
"particularly with respect to mid and high back vowels"
If you mean that the realization of the GOAT vowel as [o:] and the FACE vowel as [e:] is due to the influence of other languages, then you're being inaccurate. These languages only helped to preserve the original pronunciation, which was used in all English dialects when the first English-speaking settlers came to America. At the time when GA was first described by that name (around 1890-1930), the pronunciations [o:] and [oU] for /o/ were by far the commonest ones all over the US, except for the South.
See Grandgent, Krapp, Kenyon, Labov et al.
"Acrolectal English in the US was Northeastern-based and rather RP-like until the end of WW2. Have you ever heard recordings of individuals such as, say, FDR spoke?"
This is irrelevant. That speaking RP was more "chic" at that time than speaking GA doesn't change the fact that the notion came to existence way before WW2. The term "General American" is mentioned in the preface to the fourth edition of Kenyon's "American Pronunciation" in 1930 as having been already coined by Krapp.
"People in that area still have notable non-GA features which are non-progressive in nature"
Such as?
"and I doubt that they spoke in a *more* GA-like fashion around the time my grandparents grew up"
It's not that they spoke in a more GA-like fashion, but that the speech of the Midwest and the West as a whole was much more uniform back then, than now.
I am not alone with saying that GA was based on the speech of the Upper Midwest, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_English
John Samuel Kenyon, who made the term GA popular, admittedly described his own speech (he was from the Western Reserve of Ohio) in his influential book "American Pronunciation".
If you mean that the realization of the GOAT vowel as [o:] and the FACE vowel as [e:] is due to the influence of other languages, then you're being inaccurate. These languages only helped to preserve the original pronunciation, which was used in all English dialects when the first English-speaking settlers came to America. At the time when GA was first described by that name (around 1890-1930), the pronunciations [o:] and [oU] for /o/ were by far the commonest ones all over the US, except for the South.
See Grandgent, Krapp, Kenyon, Labov et al.
"Acrolectal English in the US was Northeastern-based and rather RP-like until the end of WW2. Have you ever heard recordings of individuals such as, say, FDR spoke?"
This is irrelevant. That speaking RP was more "chic" at that time than speaking GA doesn't change the fact that the notion came to existence way before WW2. The term "General American" is mentioned in the preface to the fourth edition of Kenyon's "American Pronunciation" in 1930 as having been already coined by Krapp.
"People in that area still have notable non-GA features which are non-progressive in nature"
Such as?
"and I doubt that they spoke in a *more* GA-like fashion around the time my grandparents grew up"
It's not that they spoke in a more GA-like fashion, but that the speech of the Midwest and the West as a whole was much more uniform back then, than now.
I am not alone with saying that GA was based on the speech of the Upper Midwest, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_English
John Samuel Kenyon, who made the term GA popular, admittedly described his own speech (he was from the Western Reserve of Ohio) in his influential book "American Pronunciation".
>>"particularly with respect to mid and high back vowels"
If you mean that the realization of the GOAT vowel as [o:] and the FACE vowel as [e:] is due to the influence of other languages, then you're being inaccurate. These languages only helped to preserve the original pronunciation, which was used in all English dialects when the first English-speaking settlers came to America. At the time when GA was first described by that name (around 1890-1930), the pronunciations [o:] and [oU] for /o/ were by far the commonest ones all over the US, except for the South.
See Grandgent, Krapp, Kenyon, Labov et al.<<
The thing is that the closest thing to what could be called "proto-North American English" (excluding Newfoundland English) most likely already had the merger between /ɛi̯/ and /eː/, and /ɔu̯/ and /oː/, as /eɪ̯/ and /oʊ̯/ respectively, and if it did not have said merger, said merger occurred very early on in North America. I consider it unlikely that the monopthongal pronunciations found in some NAE dialects today are at all continuous with later Early New English /eː/ and /oː/, which would have required the merger mentioned above to have occurred quite late in NAE.
However, I am not talking about just that. What I am also referring to is the general backness and roundness of /u/, /ʊ/, /o/, and /ɒ/ in such dialects, as opposed to the general tendency to centralize and unrounded such in English dialects; while /ʊ/ is fronted a bit, it is not nearly as fronted as in most other English dialects. In particular, at least here, /o/ is a pure back vowel without centralization or unrounding except in the speech of some scattered younger people. Of course, as this is a conservative feature, you could easily make the argument that outside influence did not *cause* this feature but rather *prevented* centralization and unrounding, but that is still outside influence nonetheless.
>>"Acrolectal English in the US was Northeastern-based and rather RP-like until the end of WW2. Have you ever heard recordings of individuals such as, say, FDR spoke?"
This is irrelevant. That speaking RP was more "chic" at that time than speaking GA doesn't change the fact that the notion came to existence way before WW2. The term "General American" is mentioned in the preface to the fourth edition of Kenyon's "American Pronunciation" in 1930 as having been already coined by Krapp.<<
Of course dialects similar to GA were spoken long before GA became *the* standard in the US, especially since much of GA is rather conservative in nature. But the matter is GA is a *standard* and not a particular dialect as actually spoken, and GA became the standard and the closest thing to an acrolectal variety in the US around the end of WW2.
>>"People in that area still have notable non-GA features which are non-progressive in nature"
Such as?<<
I should have clarified what I meant by "progressive" here; what I meant is features which are not recent or recently adopted innovations *away from* General American, as things such as the NCVS and Canadian Raising are in the Upper Midwest. Good examples of such are my previously cited vowel related examples. Other examples which, while being progressive in the context of English as a whole are not really changes away from previously more GA-like forms (due to being substratum influences) are the hardening of interdental consonants (even if just limited to initial /ð/ being shifted to [d], [d̪], and [d̪ð]) and final devoicing with fortition (as normally happens to /z/, /ʒ/, /dʒ/ and less commonly to extent /v/ and /d/ here).
>>John Samuel Kenyon, who made the term GA popular, admittedly described his own speech (he was from the Western Reserve of Ohio) in his influential book "American Pronunciation".<<
Mind you that I would generally consider Ohio to be part of the Lower Midwest rather than the Upper Midwest... The matter is that I do not include Iowa, Illinois south of the Chicago area, most of Indiana, or Ohio as really being part of the Upper Midwest, as they have significant differences both culturally and linguistically from areas like WIsconsin, Minnesota, the Chicago area, Michigan, and North Dakota.
If you mean that the realization of the GOAT vowel as [o:] and the FACE vowel as [e:] is due to the influence of other languages, then you're being inaccurate. These languages only helped to preserve the original pronunciation, which was used in all English dialects when the first English-speaking settlers came to America. At the time when GA was first described by that name (around 1890-1930), the pronunciations [o:] and [oU] for /o/ were by far the commonest ones all over the US, except for the South.
See Grandgent, Krapp, Kenyon, Labov et al.<<
The thing is that the closest thing to what could be called "proto-North American English" (excluding Newfoundland English) most likely already had the merger between /ɛi̯/ and /eː/, and /ɔu̯/ and /oː/, as /eɪ̯/ and /oʊ̯/ respectively, and if it did not have said merger, said merger occurred very early on in North America. I consider it unlikely that the monopthongal pronunciations found in some NAE dialects today are at all continuous with later Early New English /eː/ and /oː/, which would have required the merger mentioned above to have occurred quite late in NAE.
However, I am not talking about just that. What I am also referring to is the general backness and roundness of /u/, /ʊ/, /o/, and /ɒ/ in such dialects, as opposed to the general tendency to centralize and unrounded such in English dialects; while /ʊ/ is fronted a bit, it is not nearly as fronted as in most other English dialects. In particular, at least here, /o/ is a pure back vowel without centralization or unrounding except in the speech of some scattered younger people. Of course, as this is a conservative feature, you could easily make the argument that outside influence did not *cause* this feature but rather *prevented* centralization and unrounding, but that is still outside influence nonetheless.
>>"Acrolectal English in the US was Northeastern-based and rather RP-like until the end of WW2. Have you ever heard recordings of individuals such as, say, FDR spoke?"
This is irrelevant. That speaking RP was more "chic" at that time than speaking GA doesn't change the fact that the notion came to existence way before WW2. The term "General American" is mentioned in the preface to the fourth edition of Kenyon's "American Pronunciation" in 1930 as having been already coined by Krapp.<<
Of course dialects similar to GA were spoken long before GA became *the* standard in the US, especially since much of GA is rather conservative in nature. But the matter is GA is a *standard* and not a particular dialect as actually spoken, and GA became the standard and the closest thing to an acrolectal variety in the US around the end of WW2.
>>"People in that area still have notable non-GA features which are non-progressive in nature"
Such as?<<
I should have clarified what I meant by "progressive" here; what I meant is features which are not recent or recently adopted innovations *away from* General American, as things such as the NCVS and Canadian Raising are in the Upper Midwest. Good examples of such are my previously cited vowel related examples. Other examples which, while being progressive in the context of English as a whole are not really changes away from previously more GA-like forms (due to being substratum influences) are the hardening of interdental consonants (even if just limited to initial /ð/ being shifted to [d], [d̪], and [d̪ð]) and final devoicing with fortition (as normally happens to /z/, /ʒ/, /dʒ/ and less commonly to extent /v/ and /d/ here).
>>John Samuel Kenyon, who made the term GA popular, admittedly described his own speech (he was from the Western Reserve of Ohio) in his influential book "American Pronunciation".<<
Mind you that I would generally consider Ohio to be part of the Lower Midwest rather than the Upper Midwest... The matter is that I do not include Iowa, Illinois south of the Chicago area, most of Indiana, or Ohio as really being part of the Upper Midwest, as they have significant differences both culturally and linguistically from areas like WIsconsin, Minnesota, the Chicago area, Michigan, and North Dakota.
Back to the original question, I'm located in a Gulf state. Glancing at the examples you've asked about, all those are merged except for "horse-hoarse" and "cot-caught."
Yeah I thought that you define Upper Midwest that way, I used the term in the same sense. However, the Western Reserve belongs to the northern dialect region.
I know that GA wasn't the acrolectal variety before WW2, but the point is that the raising of /aI/ wasn't so common back then in the Upper Midwest, so the reason for its not being considered as a GA feature is not that GA was based on the speech of the Lower Midwest as opposed to the Upper Midwest but that GA was based on an accent which sounds very conservative nowadays.
I know that GA wasn't the acrolectal variety before WW2, but the point is that the raising of /aI/ wasn't so common back then in the Upper Midwest, so the reason for its not being considered as a GA feature is not that GA was based on the speech of the Lower Midwest as opposed to the Upper Midwest but that GA was based on an accent which sounds very conservative nowadays.