Low-Back-Merger Shift
   HOME



picture info

Low-Back-Merger Shift
The Low-Back-Merger Shift is a chain shift of vowel sounds found in several dialects of North American English, beginning in the last quarter of the 20th century and most significantly involving the low back merger (which collapses together the low-back vowel sounds: , , and in words like , , and respectively) accompanied by the lowering and backing of each of the front-lax vowels: , , and (in words like , , and respectively). The back and downward movement of all the front lax vowels was first noted as distinguishing certain California English speakers in 1987, and it was soon known by linguists as the California Vowel Shift. Then, it came to distinguish certain Canadian English speakers in a 1995 study, now known in that variety as the Canadian Shift; today, it helps define Standard Canadian English. The California and Canadian Shifts were initially reported as two separate phenomena, but the same basic pattern was next documented among some younger varieties of Wes ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Chain Shift
In historical linguistics, a chain shift is a set of sound changes in which the change in pronunciation of one speech sound (typically, a phoneme) is linked to, and presumably causes, a change in pronunciation of other sounds. The sounds involved in a chain shift can be ordered into a "chain" in such a way that after the change is complete, each phoneme ends up sounding like what the phoneme before it in the chain sounded like ''before'' the change. The changes making up a chain shift, interpreted as rules of phonology, are in what is termed '' counterfeeding order''. A well-known example is the Great Vowel Shift, which was a chain shift that affected all of the long vowels in Middle English. The changes to the front vowels may be summarized as follows: : → → → A drag chain or pull chain is a chain shift in which the phoneme at the "leading" edge of the chain changes first. In the example above, the chain shift would be a pull chain if changed to first, opening ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent of British English regarded as the Standard language, standard one, carrying the highest Prestige (sociolinguistics), social prestige, since as late as the beginning of the 20th century. It is also commonly referred to as the Queen's English or King's English. The study of RP is concerned only with matters of pronunciation, while other features of standard British English, such as vocabulary, grammar, and Style (sociolinguistics), style, are not considered. Language scholars have long disagreed on RP's exact definition, how geographically neutral it is, how many speakers there are, the nature and classification of its sub-varieties, how appropriate a choice it is as a standard, how the accent has changed over time, and even its name. Furthermore, RP has changed to such a degree over the last century that many of its early 20th-century traditions of transcription and analysis have become outdated or are no long ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Atlantic Provinces
Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (), is the region of Eastern Canada comprising four provinces: New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. As of 2021, the landmass of the four Atlantic provinces was approximately , and had a population of over 2.4 million people. The term ''Atlantic Canada'' was popularized following the admission of Newfoundland as a Canadian province in 1949. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is not included in the Maritimes, another significant regional term, but ''is'' included in Atlantic Canada. History The Atlantic Provinces are the historical territories of the Mi'kmaq, Naskapi, Beothuk and Nunatsiavut peoples. The people of Nunatsiavut are the Labrador Inuit (Labradormiut), who are descended from the Thule people. Exploration and settlement Leif Erikson and other members of his family began exploring the North American coast in 986 CE. Leif landed in three places, and in the thir ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


William Labov
William David Labov ( ; December4, 1927December17, 2024) was an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics, and "one of the most influential linguists of the 20th and 21st centuries". Labov was a professor in the linguistics department of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and pursued research in sociolinguistics, language change, and dialectology. He retired in 2015 but continued to publish research until his death in 2024. Early life and education Labov was born in Passaic, New Jersey, and raised in Rutherford, New Jersey, Rutherford, moving to Fort Lee, New Jersey, Fort Lee at age 12. According to Labov, the physician who delivered him was William Carlos Williams. He attended Harvard University, where he majored in English and philosophy and studied chemistry. He graduated fr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Canadian Vowel Shift According To Clarke And Boberg
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''Canadian''. Canada is a multilingual and multicultural society home to people of groups of many different ethnic, religious, and national origins, with the majority of the population made up of Old World immigrants and their descendants. Following the initial period of French and then the much larger British colonization, different waves (or peaks) of immigration and settlement of non-indigenous peoples took place over the course of nearly two centuries and continue today. Elements of Indigenous, French, British, and more recent immigrant customs, languages, and religions have combined to form the culture of Canada, and thus a Canadian identity and Canadian values. Canada has also been strongly influenced by its linguistic, geographic, an ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (), is the list of regions of Canada, region of Eastern Canada comprising four provinces: New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. As of 2021, the landmass of the four Atlantic provinces was approximately , and had a population of over 2.4 million people. The term ''Atlantic Canada'' was popularized following the admission of Newfoundland as a Canadian province in 1949. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is not included in the Maritimes, another significant regional term, but ''is'' included in Atlantic Canada. History The Atlantic Provinces are the historical territories of the Mi'kmaq, Naskapi, Beothuk and Nunatsiavut peoples. The people of Nunatsiavut are the Labrador Inuit (Labradormiut), who are descended from the Thule people. Exploration and settlement Leif Erikson and other members of his family began exploring the North American coast in 986 CE. Leif landed in three pla ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Canadian Prairies
The Canadian Prairies (usually referred to as simply the Prairies in Canada) is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provinces are partially covered by grasslands, plains, and Upland and lowland#Lowland, lowlands, mostly in the southern regions. The northernmost reaches of the Canadian Prairies are less dense in population, marked by forests and more variable topography. If the region is defined to include areas only covered by prairie land, the corresponding region is known as the Interior Plains. Physical or ecological aspects of the Canadian Prairies extend to northeastern British Columbia, but that area is not included in political use of the term. The prairies in Canada are a biome of Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands, temperate grassland and shrubland within the prairie ecoregion of Canada that consists of Canadian Aspen Forests and Parkland ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vancouver
Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The Metro Vancouver area had a population of 2.6million in 2021, making it the List of census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada#List, third-largest metropolitan area in Canada. Greater Vancouver, along with the Fraser Valley, comprises the Lower Mainland with a regional population of over 3million. Vancouver has the highest population density in Canada, with over , and the fourth highest in North America (after New York City, San Francisco, and Mexico City). Vancouver is one of the most Ethnic origins of people in Canada, ethnically and Languages of Canada, linguistically diverse cities in Canada: 49.3 percent of its residents are not native English speakers, 47.8 percent are native speakers of nei ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Low Back Rounded Vowel
The open back rounded vowel, or low back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . It is called Latin turned alpha being a rotated version of Latin alpha. It seems a "turned script ''a''", being a rotated version of "script (cursive) ''a''", which is the variant of ''a'' that lacks the extra stroke on top of a "printed ''a''". Latin turned alpha ''a'' has its linear stroke on the left, whereas Latin alpha ''a'' (for its unrounded counterpart) has its linear stroke on the right. Features Occurrence See also * Turned ''a'' * Index of phonetics articles A * Acoustic phonetics * Active articulator * Affricate * Airstream mechanism * Alexander John Ellis * Alexander Melville Bell * Alfred C. Gimson * Allophone * Alveolar approximant () * Alveolar click () * Alveolar consonant * Alveolar ej ... Notes References * * * * * * * * * * * * * ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Cot–caught Merger
The ''cot''–''caught'' merger, also known as the merger or low back merger, is a sound change present in some dialects of English where speakers do not distinguish the vowel phonemes in words like ''cot'' versus ''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 or, in most United States English, as and . The merger is typical of most Indian, 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 many U.S. accents have no vowel difference in words lik ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Toronto English Vowel Chart
Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the fourth-most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration of 9,765,188 people (as of 2021) surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario, while the Greater Toronto Area proper had a 2021 population of 6,712,341. As of 2024, the census metropolitan area had an estimated population of 7,106,379. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, sports, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world. Indigenous peoples have travelled through and inhabited the Toronto area, located on a broad sloping plateau interspersed with rivers, deep ravines, and urban forest, for more than 10,000 years. After the broadly disputed Toronto Purchase, when the Mississauga surrendered the a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language. While Australia has no official language, English is the first language of Languages of Australia, the majority of the population, and has been entrenched as the ''de facto'' national language since the onset of History of Australia (1788–1850), British settlement, being the only language spoken in the home for 72% of Australians in 2021. It is also the main language used in compulsory education, as well as federal, state and territorial legislatures and courts. Australian English began to diverge from British English, British and Hiberno-English after the First Fleet established the Colony of New South Wales in 1788. Australian English arose from a Koiné language, dialectal melting pot created by the intermingling of early settlers who were from a variety of d ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]