The Pronunciation of "Blog" in American English

>><<Kirk, it sounded like "call" was not quite an /A/, especially when you used it in the sentence. Probably because the dark l pulls the vowel back a little.>>

Yeah I have pre dark l allophones of a few vowels, that's right. However, it still doesn't really sound like [O] to me. Of course, even if it were, it would not be phonemically such but just an allophone (as compared, to, say, real unmerged vowels which are phonemically distinct of course) .<<

This is unlike myself, where there has been a full merger of historical /A/ and /O/ (present-day /a/ and /O/) before historical /l/ (present-day /L\/) in all cases, so that in native words no instances of /a/ can now be found before /L\/ (and in all cases one would expect it /O/ is present instead).

However, there is now a separate phonological rule that /aI/ becomes [a] (length aside) before /L\/ (as well as /w/, /u/ and /o/) in informal and unstressed speech. Note that this is purely phonological in nature, and does act across word boundaries. This rule seems to be quite widespread in NAE dialects, as shown by things like common pronunciations of "I don't" and "I don't know" which use the diphthong [ao] in them.

This would seem to in a way fill the "hole" created by the aforementioned merger, by making it so that [a] can now be found before /L\/. But it does not; the phoneme /a/ is still never present before /L\/, and any foreign word which is borrowed which would normally have /aL\/ instead uses /OL\/ *rather than* using /aIL\/, despite that the latter would actually have a more faithful realization.

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Jahg, doesnt rhyme with dawg but it does with blahg

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I do make a distinction between /A/ and /Q/ before [5] - for me, the [5] doesn't seem to induce noticeable allophony in either vowel. Of course, all historical instances of /Ql/ and /Ol/ have, in my dialect, merged into /Ql/ (thus, "all", "doll", "ball", "call" = [Q5], [dQ5], [bQ5], [k_hQ5]), so instances of [A5] are actually rather rare for me. But nonetheless, I would make distinctions like "Dahl"-"doll" [dA5]-[dQ5] or "Dali"-"dolly" [dA5i]-[dQ5i].

Instances of [A5] that I can think of in my dialect would be:
banal - [b@"nA5]
cabal - [k_h@"bA5]
Chagall - [S@"gA5]
Taj Mahal - ["t_hAdZ m@"hA5]
KwaZulu-Natal - [%k_hwA"zu5u n@"t_hA5]

As you can see, proper nouns account for a significant number (probably most) of the occurrences of [A5] in my dialect.

Actually, scratch what I had said above. It most applies though, but I forgot to mention that /L\/ has to wind up in a syllable coda, not in the head of a following syllable. Also, I do have [aL\] in codas in loanwords, names, and the weird case of "cabal" (but *not* "banal"). However, the *vast* majority of non-loanwords/names are such that one never has underlying /aL\/ if one would get [L\] in a syllable coda.

Actually, scratch that again. Even in cases like those you listed above, my dialect does have a bias towards "fixing" them, in the long term, by shifting /aL\/ to /OL\/ in cases where /L\/ falls in a coda position. For instance, I normally would pronounce "Chagall" and "Taj Mahal" with [OL\] but "cabal" with [aL\]. Generally, I would guess that the more nativized and more common such words became, the more likely they would be "fixed" in such a fashion.

But then, as for the alternation between [a] and [O] based on syllable structure, such is not as simple as it would seem, as it is generally dependent on the historical forms once there, in particular, whether /A/ or /Q/ was historically present.

The matter is that while historical /A/ was unconditionally merged with /O/ as /O/ before /L\/ in all places, regardless of syllable structure, the case of /Q/ is not so simple. The thing about /Q/ in my dialect is that while it by default became /A/ (present /a/), it did not truly cleanly merge with such, as in some words, such as "block", I find that I quite often alternate between /a/ and /O/ in everyday speech in positions where historically /Q/ had been present.

In the case of /Q/, though, it underwent a (mostly) clean phonemic split here before /L\/ depending on syllable structure. It shifted to /A/ (present day /a/) if it was in an open syllable, and to /O/ if it was in a closed syllable. This has had the consequence of potentially causing alternations in some morphologically related words, in particular the pair "doll" and "dolly", which have /O/ and /a/ respectively here. Note that the "mostly" part is that in positions where /Q/ merged with /O/, it will at times occasionally alternate with /a/; however, though, I would not be surprised if such were at least in part due to GAE influence, like in the case of pronouncing "doll" as [da:L\] rather than [dO:L\].

<<Instances of [A5] that I can think of in my dialect would be:
banal - [b@"nA5] >>

That's funny--I've always pronounced "banal" as ["ben5=] to rhyme with "anal." I looked it up on Webster and sure enough it shows several different pronunciations, including mine and yours.

Not surprisingly, in comparison to you guys' instances of [A5] mine aren't so complicated. "Doll" has the same vowel as "all" and "Taj Mahal" for me.

>>That's funny--I've always pronounced "banal" as ["ben5=] to rhyme with "anal." I looked it up on Webster and sure enough it shows several different pronunciations, including mine and yours.<<

I also have the similar ["be~:nL\=] for "banal", and had not heard of Lazar's pronunciation of such at all until now.

>>Not surprisingly, in comparison to you guys' instances of [A5] mine aren't so complicated. "Doll" has the same vowel as "all" and "Taj Mahal" for me.<<

Subjectively, the idea of pronouncing "all" with [A] or [a] seems absolutely bizarre to me, even though even if there were originally a historical /O/ present at some point anyways, it naturally should have merged to /A/ in your dialect.

<<Subjectively, the idea of pronouncing "all" with [A] or [a] seems absolutely bizarre to me, even though even if there were originally a historical /O/ present at some point anyways, it naturally should have merged to /A/ in your dialect.>>

Yup. And subjectively I find /O5/ odd for "all," especially in its more extreme manifestations such as my professor from New York's "all" which is something like [O@5] [o@5] or [U@5]. It's weird.

>The Pronunciation of "Blog" in American English<

They say "blahg".

<<They say "blahg".>>

Not all of them. There are huge numbers of people in the Northeast, Midwest, and South who would pronounce it "blawg" ([blOg], [blQg], [blOUg], or something similar). I don't know which pronunciation is more common, but I know that American dictionaries that show cot-caught unmerged pronunciations usually give "blawg" as the primary pronunciation of "blog".

^ To clarify (since most dictionaries probably don't actually list the word "blog"), I meant that said dictionaries usually give "lawg" as the primary pronunciation of "log"; and since "blog" is derived from "web-log", I assume that nearly everyone would use the same vowel in "blog" as in "log".

I think it's more "blahg" and "lahg" for me. I have to purse my lips more to say "lawg".

<<^ To clarify (since most dictionaries probably don't actually list the word "blog"), I meant that said dictionaries usually give "lawg" as the primary pronunciation of "log"; and since "blog" is derived from "web-log", I assume that nearly everyone would use the same vowel in "blog" as in "log".>>

Exactly.

<<I think it's more "blahg" and "lahg" for me. I have to purse my lips more to say "lawg".>>

Yeah "lawg" implies roundedness which is not what I have for "log." Like you I have "lahg" and "blahg" but that's not surprising you and I both have that vowel seeing as we're cloth-lot, father-bother, and cot-caught merged.