English-language vowel changes before historic l

Salary-celery merger

The salary-celery merger is a conditioned merger of (as in bat) and (as in bet) when they occur before , thus making salary and celery homophones. Note: online version is PDF.Palethorpe, S. and Cox, F. M. (2003) Vowel Modification in Pre-lateral Environments. Poster presented at the International Seminar on Speech Production, December 2003, Sydney. Note: online version is PDF. This merger occurs in the English spoken in New Zealand and the Australian state of Victoria. In varieties with the merger, salary and celery are both pronounced (Cox & Palethorpe, 2003).

The merger is not well studied. It is referred to in various sociolinguistic publications, but usually only as a small section of the larger change undergone by vowels preceding in articles about l-vocalisation. Most Victorians and New Zealanders do not exhibit l-vocalisation.

Horsfield (2001) investigates the effects of postvocalic on the preceding vowels in New Zealand English; her investigation, however, covers all of the New Zealand English vowels and is not specifically tailored to studying mergers and neutralizations, but rather the broader change that occurs across the vowels. She has suggested that further research involving minimal pairs like telly and tally, celery and salary should be done before any firm conclusions are drawn.

The merger is one of very the definite Australasian regionalisms. The merger stops rather rapidly at the Murray River (NSW-Victorian border), with Wangaratta in Victoria merging but Temora, Junee, Wagga in NSW not. It is one of the very few features that New Zealand and Victoria share that the rest of Australia doesn't also share with New Zealand, and is thought by some to have begun in the 1970s in both regions.

A pilot study was of the merger was done, which yielded perception and production data from a few New Zealand speakers. The results of the pilot survey suggested that although the merger was not found in the speech of all participants, those who distinguished between and also accurately perceived a difference between them; those who merged and were less able to accurately perceive the distinction. The finding has been interesting to some linguists because it concurs with the recent understanding that losing a distinction between two sounds involves losing the ability to produce it as well as to perceive it (Gordon 2002). However, due to the very small number of people participating in the study the results cannot be considered convincing.

The findings about the lack of perception between the distinction between and for some speakers with the merger have been interesting to some linguists, because although they can clearly hear a difference between the sounds and (in bat and bet), elsewhere they can't hear the difference when they come before a sound.

Fill-feel merger

The fill-feel merger is a conditioned merger of the vowels and before /l/ that occurs in some dialects of American English. The merged vowel is usually closer to than . The heaviest concentration of the merger is found in Southern American English: in North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, northern Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana (but not New Orleans), and west-central Texas (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006: 69-73).

Fell-fail merger

The same two regions show a closely related merger, namely the fell-fail merger of and before that occurs in some varieties of Southern American English making fell and fail homophones.In addition to North Carolina and Texas, these mergers are found sporadically in other Southern states and in the Midwest and West.http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map7.htmlhttp://www.ling.upenn.edu/phonoatlas/Atlas_chapters/Ch9/Ch9.html

Full-fool merger

The full-fool merger is a conditioned merger of and before , making pairs like pull/pool and full/fool homophones. The main concentration of the pull-pool merger is in the North Midland accent of American English, particularly in Pittsburgh English. The merger is less consistently present in eastern Pennsylvania and southern Indiana.http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map5.html Accents with /l/-vocalisation, such as New Zealand English, Estuary English and Cockney, may also have the full-fool merger in most cases, but when a suffix beginning with a vowel is appended, the distinction returns: Hence 'pull' and 'pool' are , but 'pulling' is whereas 'pooling' remains .^*

Non-native observers of Australian English may mistakenly think the full-fool merger occurs there, as the vowel quality is the same: . A quantity distinction is still made, however, and the two phonemes are quite distinct to native speakers. Hence, full is pronounced and fool , so there is no merger.

Interestingly, the fill-feel merger and full-fool merger are not unified in American English; they are found in different parts of the country, and very few people show both mergers.http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map6.html

Hull-hole merger

The hull-hole merger is a conditioned merger of and before /l/ occurring for some speakers of English English with l-vocalization. As a result, "hull" and "hole" are homophones. The merger is also mentioned by Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 73) as a merger before /l/ in North American English that might require further study.

Doll-dole merger

The doll-dole merger is a conditioned merger of and before /l/ occurring for some speakers of English English with l-vocalization. As a result, doll and dole become homophones. (Wells: 317).

Others

Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 73) mention four mergers before that may be underway in some accents of North American English, and which require more study:

and (bull vs bowl)
and (hull vs hall)
and (bull vs hull)
and (hull vs hole)

References

Australian English | New Zealand English | American English | Splits and mergers in English phonology

Gourt Home::Gourt :: English-language vowel changes before historic l