Unrounded In a few varieties of English, the vowel in
lot is unrounded, pronounced toward []. This is found in the following dialects: • Most of
Irish English • Much of the Caribbean •
Norwich • The
West Country and the
West Midlands of England • Most of
North American English • Excluding northeastern
New England English and
Western Pennsylvania English, where it is typically raised toward , merging with the vowel in
thought. There's also evidence for it in
South East England as early as the late 16th century and as late as the 19th century. Linguists disagree as to whether the unrounding of the
lot vowel occurred independently in North America (probably occurring around the end of the 17th century) or was imported from certain types of speech current in Britain at that time. In such accents outside of North America,
lot typically is pronounced as , therefore being kept distinct from the vowel in
palm, pronounced or . However, the major exception to this is
North American English, where the vowel is lengthened to merge with the vowel in
palm, as described below. This merger is called the ''''
merger or more commonly the father–bother'' merger. (See further below.)
Father–bother merger The '''
father–bother merger'
is a phonemic merger of the lexical sets and . It represents unrounded lot
, as detailed above, taken a step further. On top of being unrounded, the length distinction between the vowel in lot
and bother
and the vowel in palm
and father
is lost, so that the two groups merge. This causes father
and bother'' to become rhymes. This occurs in the great majority of North American accents; of the North American dialects that have unrounded
lot, the only notable exception to the merger is
New York City English, where the opposition with the -type vowel is somewhat tenuous. Examples of possible
homophones resulting from the merger include
Khan and
con () as well as
Saab and
sob (). While the accents in northeastern
New England, such as the
Boston accent, also remain unmerged among older speakers,
lot remains rounded and merges instead with
cloth and
thought.
split The
split is the result of a late 17th-century sound change that lengthened to before
voiceless fricatives, and also before in the words
gone and sometimes
on. It was ultimately raised and merged with of words like
thought, although in some accents that vowel is actually open . This means that is not a separate vowel; rather, it means "either or , depending on the accent". The sound change is most consistent in the last syllable of a word, and much less so elsewhere (see below). Some words that entered the language later, especially when used more in writing than speech, are exempt from the lengthening, e.g.
Goth with the short vowel. Similar changes took place in words with ; see
trap–bath split and
/æ/-tensing. The cot–caught merger, discussed below, has removed the distinction in some dialects. As a result of the lengthening and raising, in the above-mentioned accents
cross rhymes with
sauce, and
soft and
cloth also have the vowel . Accents affected by this change include
American English accents that lack the
cot-caught merger and formerly
RP, although with the exception of
water , today words of this group almost always have short in RP. The lengthening and raising generally happened before the fricatives , , and , and in the word
water for an unknown reason (compare the
broadening of a in father). In American English, the raising was extended to the environment before
velars and , and sometimes before as well, giving pronunciations like for
long, for
dog and for
chocolate. In the varieties of
American English that have the lot–cloth split, the
lot vowel is usually symbolized as , often called the "short o" for historical reasons, as the corresponding RP vowel is still short (and it contrasts with as in
father and
start). The
thought vowel is usually transcribed as and it is often called the "open o". Its actual phonetic realization may be open , whereas the
lot vowel may be realized as central . Some words vary as to which vowel they have. For example, words that end in
-og like
frog,
hog,
fog,
log,
bog etc. have in some accents and in others. There are also significant complexities in the pronunciation of written
o occurring before one of the triggering phonemes in a non-final syllable. In other cases, however, the use of the open o as opposed to the short o is largely predictable. Just like with
/æ/-tensing and the
trap–bath split, there seems to be an open-syllable constraint. Namely, the change did not affect words with /ɑ/ in open syllables unless they were closely derived from words with in
closed syllables. Hence occurs in
crossing,
crosser,
crosses because it occurs in
cross. In contrast,
possible,
jostle,
impostor,
profit,
Gothic, and
boggle all have . However, there are still exceptions in words like
Boston and
foster. A further list of words is mentioned in the table below: Some words may vary depending on the speaker like (
coffee,
offer,
donkey,
soggy,
boondoggle, etc. with either or ). Meanwhile, other words vary by region. For example, the word
on, which in
Northern American English dialects without the
cot-caught merger is pronounced , rhyming with
don, but in
Midland and
Southern American English without the merger is pronounced , rhyming with
dawn. The isogloss for this difference, termed the
ON line, lies between
New York City and Philadelphia on the East Coast and runs West as far as speakers without the merger can be found. Pronunciation of the word
want as is also strongly associated with the South.
Cot–caught merger The
cot–caught merger (also known as the low back merger or the lexical set| merger) is a
phonemic merger occurring in many accents of English, where the vowel sound in words like
cot,
nod, and
stock (the vowel), has merged with that of
caught,
gnawed, and
stalk (the vowel). For example, with the merger,
cot and
caught become perfect
homophones.
merger The
merger is a merger of the English vowels of and that has been reported in
Geordie since the late 20th century, with a quality around [oː]. The merger is more common among younger female speakers. The merger also exists among older speakers in
Bradford English with a quality around [ɔː], but younger speakers are more likely to resist the merger by fronting the vowel.
London split In some London accents of English, the vowel in words such as
thought, force, and
north, which merged earlier on in these varieties of English, undergoes a conditional split based on syllable structure: closed syllables have a higher vowel quality such as (possibly even in broad Cockney varieties), and open syllables have a lower vowel quality or a centering diphthong . Originally-open syllables with an inflectional suffix (such as
bored) retain the lower vowel quality, creating minimal pairs such as
bored vs.
board or
paws vs.
pause .
Geordie split In broad
Geordie, some words (roughly, those spelled with
a, as in
walk and
talk) have (which phonetically is the long counterpart of ) instead of the standard . Those are the traditional dialect forms which are being replaced with the standard . is therefore not necessarily a distinct phoneme in the vowel system of Geordie, also because it occurs as an allophone of before voiced consonants.
Distribution of The distribution of the vowel transcribed with in broad IPA varies greatly among dialects. It corresponds to , , and (when not prevocalic within the same word) and even in other dialects: • In non-rhotic dialects spoken outside of North America, corresponds mostly to in General American and so is most often spelled . In dialects with the
trap–bath split (such as Received Pronunciation, New Zealand English and South African English), it also corresponds to GA , which means that it can also be spelled before voiceless fricatives. In those dialects, and are separate phonemes. • In native words, in most non-rhotic speech of North America corresponds to both in GA (RP ) and in RP, as those dialects feature the
father–bother merger. • North American English features the
father–bother merger, where often corresponds to in RP. Only
New York City English and
New England English distinguish between the two, and with an unrounded vowel. Modern-day New York City English also has rounded for reflexes of , which ironically, came from an unrounded vowel. • The
cot–caught merger usually occurs in addition to the father–bother merger. This applies to almost all of Canadian English and many varieties of American English. The result is usually , the vowel, which is used for as well. Some dialects will have as the merged vowel, not ; these include
Standard Canadian English or
Pittsburgh English. • The
caught-cot merger
without the
father–bother merger is found in
Scottish English and most of
New England English. • In loanwords and names, the
open central unrounded vowel in a source language is regularly approximated with in North America and in RP. However, in the case of mid back rounded vowels spelled , the usual North American approximation is , not (in RP, it can be either or ). However, when the vowel is both stressed and word-final, the only possibilities in RP are in the first case and in the latter case, mirroring GA. For the sake of simplicity, instances of an unrounded vowel (phonetically ) that do not merge with / are excluded from the table below. For this reason, the traditional Norfolk dialect is included but the contemporary one, nor the Cardiff dialect, are not.
Fronted In many dialects of English, the vowel has undergone fronting. The exact phonetic value varies. Dialects with the fronted include Received Pronunciation; Southern, Midland, and Mid-Atlantic American English; and Australian English. This fronting does not generally occur before , a relatively retracted consonant. ==Table==