Shortening of to In a handful of words, some of which are very common, the vowel was shortened to . In a few of those words, notably
blood and
flood, the shortening happened early enough that the resulting underwent the "
foot–strut split" (see next section) and are now pronounced with . Other words that underwent shortening later consistently have , such as
good and
foot. Still other words, such as
roof,
hoof, and
root, are variable, with some speakers preferring and others preferring in such words, such as in
Texan English. For some speakers in Northern England, words ending in
-ook that have undergone shortening to elsewhere, such as
book and
cook, still have the long vowel.
FOOT–STRUT split The – split is the split of
Middle English short into two distinct phonemes: (as in
foot) and (as in
strut). The split occurs in most varieties of English, the most notable exceptions being most of
Northern England and the
English Midlands and some varieties of
Hiberno-English. In
Welsh English, the split is also absent in parts of
North Wales under influence from
Merseyside and
Cheshire accents and in the south of
Pembrokeshire, where English overtook Welsh long before that occurred in the rest of Wales. The origin of the split is the unrounding of in
Early Modern English, resulting in the phoneme . Usually, unrounding to did not occur if was preceded by a
labial consonant, such as , , , or was followed by , , or , leaving the modern . Because of the inconsistency of the split,
put and
putt became a
minimal pair that were distinguished as and . The first clear description of the split dates from 1644. In non-splitting accents,
cut and
put rhyme,
putt and
put are homophonous as , and
pudding and
budding rhyme. However,
luck and
look may not necessarily be homophones since many accents in the area concerned have
look as , with the vowel of
goose. The absence of the split is a less common feature of educated Northern English speech than the absence of the
trap–bath split. The absence of the foot–strut split is sometimes stigmatized, and speakers of non-splitting accents may try to introduce it into their speech, which sometimes results in
hypercorrection such as by pronouncing
butcher . In
Birmingham and the
Black Country, the realisation of the and vowels is somewhat like a neutralisation between Northern and Southern dialects. may be pronounced with a , and may be pronounced with a . However, both may also be pronounced with a phonetically intermediate which is also present further north in
Tyneside. There is also variation in some non-splitting dialects, as while most words use , some words such as
none,
one,
once,
nothing,
tongue and
among(st) may instead be pronounced with in dialects such as parts of
Yorkshire. The name
– split refers to the
lexical sets introduced by and identifies the vowel phonemes in the words. From a historical point of view, however, the name is inappropriate because the word
foot did not have short when the split happened, but it underwent shortening only later. In modern standard varieties of English, such as
Received Pronunciation (RP) and
General American (GA), the vowel is a relatively uncommon phoneme. It occurs most regularly in words in
-ook (like
book, cook, hook etc.). It is also spelt
-oo- in
foot, good, hood, soot, stood, wood, wool, and
-oul- in
could, should, would. Otherwise, it is spelt
-u- (but
-o- after
w-); such words include
bull, bush, butcher, cushion, full, pudding, pull, push, puss, put, sugar, wolf, woman. More frequent use is found in recent borrowings though sometimes in alternation with (as in
Muslim in both RP/GA) or (as in
Buddha in GA).
STRUT–COMMA merger The – merger or the –
schwa merger is a merger of with that occurs in
Welsh English, some higher-prestige
Northern England English and some General American. The merger causes
minimal pairs such as
unorthodoxy and
an orthodoxy to be merged. The phonetic quality of the merged vowel depends on the accent. For instance, merging General American accents have as the stressed variant and as the word-final variant. Elsewhere, the vowel surfaces as or even (GA features the
weak vowel merger). That can cause words such as
hubbub ( in RP) to have two different vowels () even though both syllables contain the same phoneme in both merging and non-merging accents. On the other hand, some areas like
Birmingham in England and much of
Wales have no noticeable difference between the stressed and the unstressed allophones, and at least the non-final variant of the merged vowel is consistently realized as the mid and central (rather than open-mid). The merged vowel is typically written with regardless of its phonetic realization. That largely matches an older canonical phonetic range of the IPA symbol , which used to be described as covering a vast central area from near-close to near-open . Because in unmerged accents, appears only in unstressed syllables, the merger occurs only in unstressed syllables. Word-finally, there is no contrast between the vowels in any accent of English (in
Middle English, , the vowel from which
was split, could not occur in that position), and the vowel that occurs in that position approaches (the main allophone of in many accents). However, there is some dialectal variation, with varieties such as broad
Cockney using variants that are strikingly more open than in other dialects. The vowel is usually identified as belonging to the phoneme even in accents without the merger, but native speakers may perceive the phonemic makeup of words such as
comma to be , rather than . The open variety of occurs even in some Northern English dialects (such as
Geordie), none of which has undergone the foot–strut split, but in Geordie, it can be generalised to other positions and so not only
comma but also
commas may be pronounced with in the second syllable, which is rare in other accents. In contemporary Standard Southern British English, the final is often mid , rather than open . All speakers of General American neutralise , and (the vowel) before , which results in an
r-colored vowel . GA lacks a truly contrastive phoneme (
furry,
hurry,
letters and
transfer (n.), which are distinguished in RP as , , and , all have the same r-colored in GA), and the symbol is used only to facilitate comparisons with other accents. See
hurry–furry merger for more information. Some other minimal pairs apart from
unorthodoxy–
an orthodoxy include
unequal vs.
an equal and
a large untidy room vs.
a large and tidy room . However, there are few minimal pairs like that, and their use as such has been criticised by scholars such as
Geoff Lindsey because the members of such minimal pairs are structurally different. Even so, pairs of words belonging to the same lexical category exist as well such as
append vs
up-end and
aneath vs
uneath . An example of a near-minimal pair is
cherub vs.
hubbub . There also are words for which RP always used in the unstressed syllable, such as
pick-up ,
goosebumps or
sawbuck , that have merging accents use the same as the second vowel of
balance. In RP, there is a consistent difference in vowel height; the unstressed vowel in the first three words is a near-open (traditionally written with ) but in
balance, it is a mid .
Development of Earlier
Middle English distinguished the
close front rounded vowel (occurring in loanwords from
Anglo-Norman like
duke) and the
diphthongs (occurring in words like
new), (occurring in words like
few) and (occurring in words like
dew). By Late Middle English, , , and
all merged as . In Early Modern English, merged into as well. has remained as such in some Welsh, some northern English and a few American accents. Thus, those varieties of Welsh English keep
threw distinct from
through . In most accents, however, the
falling diphthong turned into a rising diphthong, which became the sequence . The change had taken place in London by the late 1800s. Depending on the preceding consonant and on the dialect, it either remained as or developed into by the processes of
yod-dropping or
yod-coalescence. That has caused the standard pronunciations of
duke (or ),
new ,
few and
rude .
FOOT–GOOSE merger The – merger is a phenomenon in
Scottish English,
Northern Irish English,
Malaysian English, and
Singapore English, in which the modern English phonemes and have merged into a single phoneme. As a result, word pairs like
look and
Luke,
pull and
pool,
full and
fool are homophones, and pairs like
good and
food and
foot and
boot rhyme. The history of the merger dates back to two
Middle English phonemes: the long vowel (which
shoot traces back to) and the short vowel (which
put traces back to). As a result of the
Great Vowel Shift, raised to , which continues to be the pronunciation of
shoot today. Meanwhile, the Middle English later adjusted to , as
put is pronounced today. However, the of
shoot next underwent a
phonemic split in which some words retained (like
mood) while the vowel of other words shortened to (like
good). Therefore, the two processes (→→ and →) resulted in a merger of the vowels in certain words, like
good and
put, to , which is now typical of how all English dialects pronounce those two words. (See the table in the section "– split" above for more information about these early shifts.) The final step, however, was for certain English dialects under the influence of foreign languages (the
Scots language influencing Scottish English, for example) to merge the newly united vowel with the vowel (of
mood and
shoot): the – merger. Again, this is not an internally motivated phonemic merger but the appliance of different languages' vowel systems to English lexical incidence. The quality of this final merged vowel is usually in Scotland and Northern Ireland but in Singapore. The
full–fool merger is a conditioned merger of the same two vowels specifically before , which causes pairs like
pull/
pool and
full/
fool to be homophones; it appears in many other dialects of English and is particularly gaining attention in several
American English varieties.
Other changes In
Geordie, the vowel undergoes an allophonic split, with the monophthong being used in morphologically-closed syllables (as in
bruise ) and the diphthong being used in morphologically-open syllables word-finally (as in
brew ) but also word-internally at the end of a
morpheme (as in
brews ). Most dialects of English turn into a diphthong, and the monophthongal is in
free variation with the diphthongal , particularly word-internally. Word-finally, diphthongs are more usual. Compare the
identical development of the close front vowel. The change of to is a process that occurs in many varieties of
British English in which bisyllabic has become the diphthong in certain words. As a result, "ruin" is pronounced as monosyllabic and "fluid" is pronounced . == See also ==