Variation between /ɔːl/ and /ɒl/ before a consonant in salt and similar words Some words such as
salt, traditionally pronounced by most RP speakers with /ɔːl/ followed by a consonant, have alternative pronunciations with /ɒl/ that are used more frequently by younger British English speakers. The use of /ɒl/ in place of traditional /ɔːl/ is most common before voiceless consonants, as in
salt, false and
alter; less commonly, /ɒl/ may also be used in words where the /l/ comes before a voiced consonant, as in
bald,
scald and
cauldron. In Great Britain, the /ɒl/ pronunciation was traditionally associated with Northern England and Wales, but has in recent decades become more widespread, including among younger speakers of RP
Modern L-vocalization More extensive L-vocalization is a notable feature of certain dialects of
English, including
Cockney,
Estuary English,
New York English,
New Zealand English,
Pittsburgh and
Philadelphia English, in which an sound occurring at the end of a word or before a consonant is pronounced as some sort of close back vocoid, e.g., , or . The resulting sound may not always be rounded. The precise phonetic quality varies. It can be heard occasionally in the dialect of the English
East Midlands, where words ending in -old can be pronounced .
KM Petyt (1985) noted this feature in the traditional dialect of West Yorkshire but said it has died out. However, in recent decades l-vocalization has been spreading outwards from London and the south east,
John C. Wells (1982) argued that it was probable that it would become the standard pronunciation in England over the next one hundred years, an idea which Petyt criticised in a book review. In Cockney, Estuary English and New Zealand English, l-vocalization can be accompanied by
phonemic mergers of vowels before the vocalized , so that
real,
reel and
rill, which are distinct in most dialects of English, are homophones as . Graham Shorrocks noted extensive L-vocalisation in the dialect of
Bolton, Greater Manchester and commented, "many, perhaps, associate such a quality more with Southern dialects, than with Lancashire/Greater Manchester." In the accent of
Bristol, syllabic can be vocalized to , resulting in pronunciations like (for
bottle). By
hypercorrection, however, some words originally ending in were given an : the original name of the town was
Bristow, but this has been altered by hypercorrection to
Bristol.
African-American English (AAE) dialects may have L-vocalization as well. However, in these dialects, it may be omitted altogether (e.g. fool becomes . Some English speakers from San Francisco – particularly those of Asian ancestry – also vocalize or omit .
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. 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''-vocalization. This merger has been detected in the English spoken in
New Zealand and in parts of the Australian state of
Victoria, including the capital
Melbourne. The merger is also found in the
Norfuk dialect spoken on
Norfolk Island. is also often lowered before in El Paso, but not all speakers show a merger. In varieties with the merger,
salary and
celery are both pronounced . The '''
fill–feel merger''' is a conditioned merger of the vowels and before that occurs in some accents. In Europe, it is commonly found in
Estuary English. Otherwise it is typical of certain accents of
American English. The heaviest concentration of the merger is found in, but not necessarily confined to,
Southern American English: in
North Carolina, eastern
Tennessee, northern
Alabama,
Mississippi, northern and central
Louisiana (but not
New Orleans), and west-central
Texas (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006: 69-73). This merger, like many other features of Southern American English, can also be found in
AAE.
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.
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 Western Pennsylvania English, centered around Pittsburgh. The merger is less consistently but still noticeably present in some speakers of surrounding Midland American English. The Atlas of North American English also reports this merger, or near-merger, scattered sporadically throughout Western American English, with particular prevalence in some speakers of urban Utahn, Californian, and New Mexican English. Accents with L
-vocalization, 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 . 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.
Hull–hole merger The '''
hull–hole merger'
is a conditioned merger of and before occurring for some speakers of English English with l''-vocalization. As a result, "hull" and "hole" are homophones as . The merger is also mentioned by Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 72) as a merger before in
North American English that might require further study. The latter merger can also involve or before . }.
Gulf–golf merger The
gulf–golf merger is the merger of the diaphonemes and before /lC/, where C denotes a consonant. It is attested in Australian English, in which it can co-occur with the
doll–dole merger. In Australian English the result of this 2–3 way merger is [ɔ], the vowel of .
Doll–dole merger The '''
doll–dole merger'
is a conditioned merger for many Southern England English, Australian English and New Zealand English speakers, of and before syllable-final (or non-prevocalic) , resulting in homophony between pairs like doll
and dole
. The distinction between and is maintained in derived forms containing prevocalic , such as dlling herself up
vs. dling it out
, which means that the underlying vowel is recoverable if the is morpheme-final, as in doll
and dole
.; this may be the cause, via hypercorrection, of pronunciations such as for solve
in place of RP . In the first phase of the split, the diphthong of goat
developed an allophone before "dark" (nonprevocalic) . Thus goal
no longer had the same vowel as goat
( vs. ). or , and ruler'' ('one who rules'), pronounced with a backer vowel that can be transcribed , or . This contrast developed from an allophonic distribution where a back variant of the
goose vowel is used before tautosyllabic /l/, as in
rule , but a fronted variant closer to is used elsewhere, as in
ruler (instrument) . This distribution has become complicated by morphology in a way that is leading to a phonemic split in words with pre-vocalic /l/: those where the /l/ is stem-final are pronounced with the phonetically back vowel (as in
ruler (monarch), a morphologically transparent derivative of
rule), whereas those where the /l/ is stem-medial are pronounced with a fronted vowel (as in
ruler (measuring instrument), which is treated as an unanalyzable unit). The difference in vowel quality is presumably accompanied by a difference in the pronunciation of the following /l/ ([ɫ] after , [l] after ). The
Goose split has spread out from
South East England due to media influence, sometimes merging with pre-existing high-back vowels in other dialects such as the [ʊw] diphthong present in the words
go, ''don't
, won't
and a few others in the West Midlands (a holdover from a historic toe
-tow
distinction). In those areas, there is a more robust contrast between the usual Goose
vowel (approximately [ɵɥ]) in words like goose
and through
, a high back vowel [ʊw] in ghoul
and don't
, and a third vowel arising from l-vocalisation in words like gull'' which is often realised as [ɤw], and they are all better analysed as separate lexical sets. A similar backing change has occurred in many North American dialects, but this has remained allophonic. For example, in
California English, the
Goose vowel is realized as a back vowel in words such as
school where it is followed by /l/, but is fronted in words where it is not followed by /l/, such as
new. Fool–fall merger For some English speakers in the UK, the vowels of
goose and
thought may be merged before dark syllable-final due to the phonetically raised pronunciation of the
thought vowel in southern England (rather than , the contemporary pronunciation of this vowel in Standard Southern British English is more accurately transcribed as or ) in combination with the backing of the
goose vowel before as part of the
Goose split. This neutralization has been found to exist for clusters of speakers in the southern UK, especially for speakers from areas of the south coast and the Greater London area.
Vile–vial merger The '''
vile–vial merger'
is where the words in the vile
set ending with (bile
, file
, guile
, I'll
, Kyle
, Lyle
, mile
, Nile
, pile
, rile
, smile
, stile
, style
, tile
, vile
, while
, wile
) rhyme with words in the vial
set ending with (decrial
, denial
, dial
, espial
, Niall
, phial
, trial
, vial
, viol''). This merger involves the dephonemicization of
schwa that occurs after a vowel and before , causing the vowel- sequence to be pronounced as either one or two syllables. This merger may also be encountered with other vowel rhymes too, including: • (
jail,
sale,
tail, etc.) and (
betrayal,
Jael), usually skewing towards two syllables. • (
coil,
soil, etc.) and (
loyal,
royal), usually skewing towards two syllables. • (
ceil,
feel,
steal, etc.) and (
real), usually skewing towards two syllables. • (
all,
drawl,
haul, etc.) and (
withdrawal), usually skewing towards one syllable. • (
bowl,
coal,
hole,
roll,
soul, etc.) and (
Joel,
Noel), usually skewing towards one syllable. • (
cool,
ghoul,
mewl,
rule, ''you'll
, etc.) and (cruel
, dual
, duel
, fuel
, gruel
, jewel''), usually skewing towards one syllable. • (
owl,
scowl, etc.) and (
bowel,
dowel,
Powell,
towel,
trowel,
vowel), inconsistently skewing towards either one or two syllables. Some words may wander across this boundary even in some non-merging accents, such as
owl with , and
bowel with . • In some
rhotic accents, (
girl,
hurl,
pearl, etc.) and (
referral), usually skewing towards two syllables. This historically happened to the word
squirrel, which was previously (and still is in certain accents) but became one syllable in
General American today. Some accents with one-syllable
squirrel later broke it into two syllables again, as . • In some rhotic
father–bother merged accents, (
Carl,
marl, etc.) and (
coral,
moral), usually skewing towards two syllables. For many speakers, the vowels in
cake,
meet,
vote and
moot can become centering diphthongs before , leading to pronunciations like , , and for
tail,
teal,
toll and
tool.
Merger of non-prevocalic , , , with morpheme-internal Cockney features a
THOUGHT-split whereby the (the -- vowel) is pronounced differently depending on its position in the syllable structure: in morpheme-internal checked syllables and in free syllables or morpheme-finally. Thus,
paw () has a different vowel from
pause (), so
paws (
) and
pause () become non-homophonous. The
L-vocalization of Cockney can lead to non-prevocalic /l/ being pronounced with a quality around , resulting in it being entirely absorbed by the preceding when it follows a (by definition, morpheme-internal checked syllable) vowel in words such as
bald,
call and
Paul, leading to homophonous pairs such as
bald and
board (),
called and
cord (), ''Paul's
and pause'' (). Such homophones can only arise when the word
without a historic /l/ also has the -- vowel in a morpheme-internal position, as in morpheme-final positions it will be pronounced as rather than , thus ''Paul's
() and paws
(), bald
() and bored'' () etc remain distinct. The
full-fool and
fool-fall mergers, both of which are common in Cockney, can cause and to also merge with morpheme-internal , leading to homophonous pairs such as
wolf and
wharf and
cools and
cause ; and
pulls,
pools, ''Paul's
and pause'' all becoming homophonous as . Non-prevocalic (as in
bottle) can also merge with morpheme-internal , leading to
musical being homophonous with
music hall as . Cockney speakers usually regard both syllables of
awful as rhyming: . In the following list, the only homophonous pairs that are included are those involving a word with /l/ and a word without. As the merger is restricted to non-rhotic accents, morpheme-internal in the fifth column is assumed to cover not only but also and .
Other mergers Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006:73) mention four mergers before that may be under way in some accents of
North American English, and which require more study: • and (
bull vs
bowl) • and (
hull vs
hall) • and (
bull vs
hull) (effectively undoing the
foot-strut split before ) • and (
hull vs
bowl) ==See also==