The standard lexical sets for English introduced by John C. Wells in his 1982
Accents of English are in wide usage. Wells defined each lexical set on the basis of the pronunciation of words in two reference accents, which he calls RP and GenAm. • "RP" refers to
Received Pronunciation, the traditionally prestigious accent in
England. • "GenAm" refers to an accent of the
General American type, which is associated with a geographically "neutral" or widespread sound system throughout the US. Wells classifies English words into 24 lexical sets on the basis of the pronunciation of the vowel of their stressed syllable in the two reference accents. Typed in
small caps, each lexical set is named after a representative keyword. Wells also describes three sets of words based on word-final unstressed vowels, which, though not included in the standard 24 lexical sets (the final three sets listed in the chart below) "have indexical and diagnostic value in distinguishing accents". For example, the word
rod is pronounced in RP and in GenAm. It therefore belongs in the lexical set.
Weary is pronounced in RP and in GenAm and thus belongs in the lexical set. Some English words do not belong to any lexical set. For example, the
a in the stressed syllable of
tomato is pronounced in RP, and in GenAm, a combination that is very unusual and is not covered by any of the 27 lexical sets above. Some words pronounced with before a
velar consonant in RP, such as
mock and
fog, belong to no particular lexical set because the GenAm pronunciation varies between and . The GenAm , , , and range between monophthongal and diphthongal , and Wells chose to phonemicize three of them as monophthongs for the sake of simplicity and as to avoid confusion with RP , . The happ set was identified phonemically as the same as for both RP and GenAm, reflecting the then-traditional analysis, although realizations similar to (
happy tensing) were already taking hold in both varieties. The notation for happ has since emerged and been taken up by major pronouncing dictionaries, including Wells's, to take note of this shift. Wells's model of General American is also conservative in that it lacks the
cot–caught (–) and
horse–hoarse (–) mergers.
Choice of the keywords Wells explains his choice of keywords ("kit", "fleece", etc.) as follows: The keywords have been chosen in such a way that clarity is maximized: whatever accent of English they are spoken in, they can hardly be mistaken for other words. Although
fleece is not the commonest of words, it cannot be mistaken for a word with some other vowel; whereas
beat, say, if we had chosen it instead, would have been subject to the drawback that one man's pronunciation of
beat may sound like another's pronunciation of
bait or
bit. Wherever possible, the keywords end in a voiceless
alveolar or
dental consonant.
Usage The standard lexical sets of Wells are widely used to discuss the
phonological and
phonetic systems of different accents of English in a clear and concise manner. Although based solely on RP and GenAm, the standard lexical sets have proven useful in describing many other accents of English. This is true because, in many dialects, the words in all or most of the sets are pronounced with similar or identical stressed vowels. Wells himself uses the Lexical Sets most prominently to give "tables of lexical incidence" for all the various accents he discusses in his work. For example, here is the table of lexical incidence he gives for
Newfoundland English: • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • : • happ: • lett: • comm: The table indicates that, for example, Newfoundland English uses the phoneme for words in the lexical set, and that the , and sets are all pronounced with the same vowel . Note that some lexical sets, such as , are given with more than one pronunciation, which indicates that not all words in the lexical set are pronounced similarly (in this case, Newfoundland English has not fully undergone the
pane–pain merger). is a back vowel ; Wells uses the symbol so that the reader does not confuse it with the vowel (which, in the case of many other accents, he writes with or ). Wells also uses the standard lexical sets to refer to "the vowel sound used for the standard lexical set in question in the accent under discussion": Thus, for example, in describing the Newfoundland accent, Wells writes that " and are reportedly often merged as ", meaning that the stressed syllables of words in the lexical set and words in the lexical set are reportedly often pronounced identically with the vowel . Lexical sets may also be used to describe
splits and mergers. For example, RP, along with most other non-rhotic accents,
pronounces words such as "father" and "farther" identically. This can be described more economically as the merger of the and lexical sets. Most North American accents make
"father" rhyme with "bother". This can be described as the merger of the and lexical sets.
Origin In a 2010 blog post, Wells wrote: He also wrote that he claimed no copyright in the standard lexical sets, and that everyone was "free to make whatever use of them they wish". Some writers on English accents have introduced a set to refer to a set of words that have the vowel in standard accents but may have a different vowel in Sheffield or in south-east London. Wells has stated that he didn't include a set because this should be interpreted as an allophone of that is sensitive to the morpheme boundary, which he illustrates by comparing the London pronunciations of
goalie and
slowly. , which documents the phonologies of varieties of English around the world like , employs Wells's standard lexical sets as well as the following supplementary lexical sets, as needed to illustrate finer details of the variety under discussion: • , discussed above • hors, offics, paintd and villge, all referring to the unstressed allophone of that is subject to the
weak vowel merger • , and , for the allophones of ( in non-rhotic dialects), and before intervocalic , commonly subject to
Mary–marry–merry merger in North American English • and , for the allophones of and before intervocalic , commonly subject to
mirror–nearer merger in North American English • treac and unc, both referring to the vocalized Other supplementary lexical sets include: • , pronounced the same as in the UK and as in the US (the opposite of the BATH vowel) • , which is the same as Wells's . • , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , met, , , , , , , , carr, cord, crious, , , bout, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Adaptation for Anglo-Welsh dialects In his work for the
Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects,
David Parry adapted Wells's lexical sets for Anglo-Welsh dialects. == See also ==