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Father-bother Merger
The phonology of the open back vowels of the English language has undergone changes both overall and with regional variations, through Old and Middle English to the present. The sounds heard in modern English were significantly influenced by the Great Vowel Shift, as well as more recent developments such as the ''cot–caught'' merger. Overview Old and Middle English In the Old English vowel system, the vowels in the open back area were unrounded: . There were also rounded back vowels of mid-height: . The corresponding spellings were and , with the length distinctions not normally marked; in modern editions of Old English texts, the long vowels are often written , . As the Old English (OE) system developed into that of Middle English (ME), the OE short vowel merged with the fronted to become a more central ME . Meanwhile, the OE long vowel was rounded and raised to ME . OE short remained relatively unchanged, becoming a short ME vowel regarded as , while OE long becam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Vowel
An open vowel is a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels (in U.S. terminology ) in reference to the low position of the tongue. In the context of the phonology of any particular language, a ''low vowel'' can be any vowel that is more open than a mid vowel. That is, open-mid vowels, near-open vowels, and open vowels can all be considered low vowels. Partial list The open vowels with dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: * open front unrounded vowel * open front rounded vowel This vowel is not known to occur as a phoneme distinct from in any language. * open back unrounded vowel * open back rounded vowel There also are central vowels that do not have dedicated symbols in the IPA: * open central unrounded vowel or (commonly written as if it were front) * open central rounded vowel There is no unambiguous way of transcribing the open cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scottish English
Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard English may be defined as "the characteristic speech of the professional class n Scotlandand the accepted norm in schools". IETF language tag for "Scottish Standard English" is en-scotland. In addition to distinct pronunciation, grammar and expressions, Scottish English has distinctive vocabulary, particularly pertaining to Scottish institutions such as the Church of Scotland, local government and the education and legal systems. Scottish Standard English is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum, with focused broad Scots at the other. Scottish English may be influenced to varying degrees by Scots.Stuart-Smith J. ''Scottish English: Phonology'' in Varieties of English: The British Isles, Kortman & Upton (Eds), Mouton de Gruyt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Midlands (region)
The West Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of International Territorial Level for statistical purposes. It covers the western half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. The region consists of the counties of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands and Worcestershire. The region has seven cities; Birmingham, Coventry, Hereford, Lichfield, Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton and Worcester. The West Midlands region is geographically diverse, from the urban central areas of the West Midlands conurbation to the rural counties of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire which border Wales. The region is landlocked. However, the longest river in the UK, the River Severn, traverses the region southeastwards, flowing through the county towns of Shrewsbury and Worcester, and the Ironbridge Gorge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Staffordshire is home to the industrialised Potteries conurbation, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Country
The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. "Which counties make up the West Country?", ''YouGov.co.uk'', 23 October 2019 Retrieved 22 June 2021 The West Country has a distinctive regional English dialect and accent, and is also home to the Cornish language. Extent The West Coun ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with one of the country's largest medieval cathedrals, it is the largest settlement and has the largest urban area in East Anglia. The population of the Norwich City Council local authority area was estimated to be 144,000 in 2021, which was an increase from 143,135 in 2019. The wider built-up area had a population of 213,166 in 2019. Heritage and status Norwich claims to be the most complete medieval city in the United Kingdom. It includes cobbled streets such as Elm Hill, Timber Hill and Tombland; ancient buildings such as St Andrew's Hall; half-timbered houses such as Dragon Hall, The Guildhall and Strangers' Hall; the Art Nouveau of the 1899 Royal Arcade; many medieval lanes; and the winding River Wensum that flows through the city c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cot–caught Merger
The ''cot''–''caught'' merger or merger, formally known in linguistics as the low back merger, is a sound change present in some dialects of English where speakers do not distinguish the vowel phonemes in "cot" and "caught". "Cot" and "caught" (along with "bot" and "bought", "pond" and "pawned", etc.) is an example of a minimal pair that is lost as a result of this sound change. The phonemes involved in the cot–caught merger, the low back vowels, are typically represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as and , respectively (in the U.S., co-occurring with the father–bother merger, as and ). The merger is typical of most Canadian and Scottish English dialects as well as some Irish and U.S. English dialects. An additional vowel merger, the father–bother merger, which spread through North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has resulted today in a three-way merger in which most Canadian and some U.S. accents have no vowel difference in words ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minimal Pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate that two phones represent two separate phonemes in the language. Many phonologists in the middle part of the 20th century had a strong interest in developing techniques for discovering the phonemes of unknown languages, and in some cases, they set up writing systems for the languages. The major work of Kenneth Pike on the subject is ''Phonemics: a technique for reducing languages to writing''. The minimal pair was an essential tool in the discovery process and was found by substitution or commutation tests. As an example for English vowels, the pair "let" + "lit" can be used to demonstrate that the phones (in let) and (in lit) actually represent distinct phonemes and . An example for English consonants is the minimal pair of "pat" + ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexical Set
A lexical set is a group of words that all fall under a single category based on a single shared phonological feature. A phoneme is a basic unit of sound in a language that can distinguish one word from another. Most commonly, following the work of phonetician John C. Wells, a lexical set is a class of words in a language that all share a certain vowel phoneme. As Wells himself says, lexical sets "enable one to refer concisely to large groups of words which tend to share the same vowel, and to the vowel which they share". For instance, the pronunciation of the vowel in ''cup'', ''luck'', ''sun'', ''blood'', ''glove'', and ''tough'' may vary in different English dialects, but is usually consistent within each dialect, and so this category of words forms a lexical set:Mesthrie, Rajend (2000). "Regional Dialectology". ''Introducing Sociolinguistics''. Edinburgh University Press, p. 50. what Wells, for ease, calls the set. Meanwhile, words like ''bid'', ''cliff'', ''limb'', ''miss'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General American
General American English or General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm) is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans. In the United States it is often perceived as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics, but it encompasses a continuum of accents rather than a single unified accent. Americans with high education, or from the North Midland, Western New England, and Western regions of the country are the most likely to be perceived as having General American accents. The precise definition and usefulness of the term ''General American'' continue to be debated, and the scholars who use it today admittedly do so as a convenient basis for comparison rather than for exactness. Other scholars prefer the term Standard American English. Standard Canadian English accents are sometimes considered to fall under General American, especially in opposition to the United Kingdom's Received Pronunciation; in fact, typical Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pronunciation Of English ⟨a⟩
There are a variety of pronunciations in modern English and in historical forms of the language for words spelled with the letter . Most of these go back to the low vowel (the "short A") of earlier Middle English, which later developed both long and short forms. The sound of the long vowel was altered in the Great Vowel Shift, but later a new long A (or "broad A") developed which was not subject to the shift. These processes have produced the main four pronunciations of in present-day English: those found in the words ''trap'', ''face'', ''father'' and ''square'' (with the phonetic output depending on whether the dialect is rhotic or not, and, in rhotic dialects, whether or not the Mary-merry merger occurs). Separate developments have produced additional pronunciations in words like ''wash'', ''talk'' and ''comma''. Overview Late Middle English had two phonemes and , differing only in length. The ("short A") was found in words such as ''cat'' and ''trap'' , and also b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mid-Ulster English
Ulster English ( sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr Inglish, ga, Béarla Ultach, also called Northern Hiberno-English or Northern Irish English) is the variety of English spoken in most of the Irish province of Ulster and throughout Northern Ireland. The dialect has been influenced by the Ulster Irish and Scots languages, the latter of which was brought over by Scottish settlers during the Plantation of Ulster and subsequent settlements throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The two major divisions of Ulster English are ''Mid-Ulster English'', the most widespread variety, and ''Ulster Scots English'', spoken in much of northern County Antrim along a continuum with the Scots language. ''Southern Ulster English'' is a transitional dialect between Mid-Ulster English and Hiberno-English. Phonology In general, Ulster English speakers' declarative sentences (with typical grammatical structure, i.e. non-topicalized statements) end with a rise in pitch, which is often heard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
