English-language vowel changes before historic l

In the history of English phonology, there have been many diachronic sound changes affecting vowels, especially involving phonemic splits and mergers. A number of these changes are specific to vowels which occur before .

Historical diphthongization before /l/

Diphthongization occurred since Early Modern English in certain ''-al-'' and ''-ol-'' sequences before coronal or velar consonants, or at the end of a word or morpheme. In these sequences, became and then , while became and then . Both of these merged with existing diphthongs: as in ''law'' and as in ''throw''.

At the end of a word or morpheme, this produced ''all'', ''ball'', ''call'', ''fall'', ''gall'', ''hall'', ''mall'', ''small'', ''squall'', ''stall'', ''pall'', ''tall'', ''thrall'', ''wall'', ''control'', ''droll'', ''extol'', ''knoll'', ''poll'' (meaning a survey of people,) ''roll'', ''scroll'', ''stroll'', ''swollen'', ''toll'', and ''troll''. The word ''shall'' did not follow this trend, and remains today.

Before coronal consonants, this produced ''Alderney'', ''alter'', ''bald'', ''balderdash'', ''false'', ''falter'', ''halt'', ''malt'', ''palsy'', ''salt'', '' Wald'', ''Walter'', ''bold'', ''cold'', ''fold'', ''gold'', ''hold'', ''molten'', ''mould/mold'', ''old'', ''shoulder'' (earlier ''sholder''), ''smolder'', ''told'', and ''wold'' (in the sense of "tract of land"). As with ''shall'', the word ''shalt'' did not follow this trend, and remains today.

Before , this produced ''balk'', ''caulk/calk'', ''chalk'', '' Dundalk'', ''falcon'', ''stalk'', ''talk'', ''walk'', ''folk'', '' Polk'', and ''yolk''.

This L-vocalization established a pattern that would influence the spelling pronunciations of some relatively more recent loanwords like ''Balt'', '' Malta'', ''waltz'', '' Yalta'', and ''polder''. It also influenced English spelling reform efforts, explaining the American English ''mold'' and ''molt'' vs. the traditional ''mould'' and ''moult''.

Certain words of more recent origin or coining, however, do not have the change and retain short vowels, including ''Al'', ''alcohol'', ''bal'', ''Cal'', ''calcium'', ''gal'', ''Hal'', ''mal-'', ''pal'', ''Sal'', ''talc'', ''Val'', ''doll'', ''Moll'', and ''Poll'' (a nickname for a parrot.)

Historical ''L''-vocalization

In most circumstances, the changes stopped there. But in ''-alk'' and ''-olk'' words, the disappeared entirely in most accents (with the notable exception of Hiberno-English). This change caused to become , and to become . Even outside Ireland, some of these words have more than one pronunciation that retains the sound, especially in American English where spelling pronunciations caused partial or full reversal of L-vocalization in a handful of cases:
* ''caulk/calk'' can be or .
* ''falcon'' can be , or .
* ''yolk'' can be or . ''yoke'' as is only conditionally homophonous.

Words like ''fault'' and ''vault'' did not undergo L-vocalization, but rather L-restoration, having previously been L-vocalized independently in Old French and lacking the in Middle English, but having it restored by Early Modern English. The word ''falcon'' existed simultaneously as homonyms and ''falcon'' in Middle English. The word ''moult/molt'' never originally had to begin with, instead deriving from Middle English ''mout'' and related etymologically to ''mutate''; the joined the word intrusively.

The Great Vowel Shift changed the diphthongs to their present pronunciations, with becoming the monophthong , and raising to .

The loss of in words spelt with ''-alf'', ''-alm'', ''-alve'' and ''-olm'' did not involve L-vocalization in the same sense, but rather the elision of the consonant and usually the compensatory lengthening of the vowel.

Variation between /ɔːl/ and /ɒl/ in ''salt'' and similar words

Some words such as ''salt'' that traditionally had /ɔːl/ for most RP speakers have alternative pronunciations with /ɒl/ that are used more frequently by younger British English speakers. This variation between /ɔːl/ and /ɒl/ occurs primarily before voiceless consonants, as in ''salt,'' ''false'' and ''alter,'' although it may also occur less commonly in words such as ''scald'' and ''bald'' where the /l/ comes before a voiced consonant. In England, this laxing before /l/ was traditionally associated with the north but has in recent decades become more widespread, including among younger speakers of RP.

Modern ''L''-vocalization

More extensive L-vocalization is a notable feature of certain dialects of English, including Cockney, Estuary English, New York English, New Zealand English, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia English, in which an sound occurring at the end of a word or before a consonant is pronounced as some sort of close back vocoid, e.g., , or . The resulting sound may not always be rounded. The precise phonetic quality varies. It can be heard occasionally in the dialect of the English East Midlands, where words ending in -old can be pronounced . KM Petyt (1985) noted this feature in the traditional dialect of West Yorkshire but said it has died out. However, in recent decades l-vocalization has been spreading outwards from London and the south east, John C Wells argued that it is probable that it will become the standard pronunciation in England over the next one hundred years, an idea which Petyt criticised in a book review.

In Cockney, Estuary English and New Zealand English, l-vocalization can be accompanied by phonemic mergers of vowels before the vocalized , so that ''real'', ''reel'' and ''rill'', which are distinct in most dialects of English, are homophones as .

Graham Shorrocks noted extensive L-vocalisation in the dialect of Bolton, Greater Manchester and commented, "many, perhaps, associate such a quality more with Southern dialects, than with Lancashire/Greater Manchester."

In the accent of Bristol, syllabic can be vocalized to , resulting in pronunciations like (for ''bottle''). By hypercorrection, however, some words originally ending in were given an : the original name of the town was ''Bristow'', but this has been altered by hypercorrection to ''Bristol''.

African-American English (AAE) dialects may have L-vocalization as well. However, in these dialects, it may be omitted altogether (e.g. fool becomes . Some English speakers from San Francisco - particularly those of Asian ancestry - also vocalize or omit .

''Salary–celery'' merger

The ''salary–celery'' merger is a conditioned merger of (as in ''bat'') and (as in ''bet'') when they occur before , thus making ''salary'' and ''celery'' homophones.Ingram, John
Norfolk Island-Pitcairn English (Pitkern Norfolk)
, '' University of Queensland'', 2006 The merger is not well studied. It is referred to in various sociolinguistic publications, but usually only as a small section of the larger change undergone by vowels preceding in articles about ''l''-vocalization.

This merger has been detected in the English spoken in New Zealand and in parts of the Australian state of Victoria, including the capital Melbourne.Are Melburnians mangling the language?
/ref>
The merger is also found in the Norfuk dialect spoken on Norfolk Island. The salary-celery merger is also characteristic of Chicano English in Los Angeles and has been attested in the Chicano English of northern New Mexico and Albuquerque as well.
is also often lowered before in El Paso, but not all speakers show a merger.
In varieties with the merger, ''salary'' and ''celery'' are both pronounced .

The study presented by Cox and Palethorpe at a 2003 conference tested just one group of speakers from Victoria: 13 fifteen-year-old girls from a Catholic girls' school in Wangaratta. Their pronunciations were compared with those of school girl groups in the towns of Temora, Junee and Wagga Wagga in New South Wales. In the study conducted by Cox and Palethorpe, the group in Wangaratta exhibited the merger while speakers in Temora, Junee and Wagga Wagga did not.

Deborah Loakes from Melbourne University has suggested that the salary-celery merger is restricted to Melbourne and southern Victoria, not being found in northern border towns such as Albury-Wodonga or Mildura.

In the 2003 study Cox and Palethorpe note that the merger appears to only involve lowering of /e/ before /l/, with the reverse not occurring, stating that "There is no evidence in this data of raised /æ/ before /l/ as in 'Elbert' for 'Albert', a phenomenon that has been popularly suggested for Victorians."

investigates the effects of postvocalic on the preceding vowels in New Zealand English; her investigation covers all of the New Zealand English vowels and is not specifically tailored to studying mergers and neutralizations, but rather the broader change that occurs across the vowels. She has suggested that further research involving minimal pairs like ''telly'' and ''tally'', ''celery'' and ''salary'' should be done before any firm conclusions are drawn.

A pilot study of the merger was done, which yielded perception and production data from a few New Zealand speakers. The results of the pilot survey suggested that although the merger was not found in the speech of all participants, those who produced a distinction between and also accurately perceived a difference between them; those who merged and were less able to accurately perceive the distinction. The finding has been interesting to some linguists because it concurs with the recent understanding that ''losing a distinction between two sounds involves losing the ability to produce it as well as to perceive it'' (Gordon 2002). However, due to the very small number of people participating in the study the results are not conclusive.

''Fill–feel'' merger

The ''fill–feel'' merger is a conditioned merger of the vowels and before that occurs in some accents. In Europe, it is commonly found in Estuary English. Otherwise it is typical of certain accents of American English. The heaviest concentration of the merger is found in, but not necessarily confined to, Southern American English: in North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, northern Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana (but not New Orleans), and west-central Texas (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006: 69-73). This merger, like many other features of Southern American English, can also be found in AAE.

''Fell–fail'' merger

The same two regions show a closely related merger, namely the ''fell–fail'' merger of and before that occurs in some varieties of Southern American English making ''fell'' and ''fail'' homophones. In addition to North Carolina and Texas, these mergers are found sporadically in other Southern states and in the Midwest and West.

''Full–fool'' merger

The ''full–fool'' merger is a conditioned merger of and before , making pairs like ''pull''/''pool'' and ''full''/''fool'' homophones. The main concentration of the ''pull–pool'' merger is in Western Pennsylvania English, centered around Pittsburgh. The merger is less consistently but still noticeably present in some speakers of surrounding Midland American English. '' The Atlas of North American English'' also reports this merger, or near-merger, scattered sporadically throughout Western American English, with particular prevalence in some speakers of urban Utahn, Californian, and New Mexican English. Accents with ''L''-vocalization, such as New Zealand English, Estuary English and Cockney, may also have the ''full–fool'' merger in most cases, but when a suffix beginning with a vowel is appended, the distinction returns: Hence 'pull' and 'pool' are , but 'pulling' is whereas 'pooling' remains .

The ''fill–feel'' merger and ''full–fool'' merger are not unified in American English; they are found in different parts of the country, and very few people show both mergers.

''Hull–hole'' merger

The ''hull–hole'' merger is a conditioned merger of and before occurring for some speakers of English English with ''l''-vocalization. As a result, "hull" and "hole" are homophones as . The merger is also mentioned by Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 72) as a merger before in North American English that might require further study. The latter merger can also involve or before .

''Goat'' split

The ''goat'' split is a process that has affected London dialects and Estuary English. In the first phase of the split, the diphthong of ''goat'' developed an allophone before "dark" (nonprevocalic) . Thus ''goal'' no longer had the same vowel as ''goat'' ( vs. ). In the second phase, the diphthong spread to other forms of affected words. For example, the realization of ''rolling'' changed from to on the model of ''roll'' . This led to the creation of a minimal pair for some speakers: ''wholly'' vs. ''holy'' and thus to phonemicization of the split. The change from to in derived forms is not fully consistent; for instance, in cockney, ''polar'' is pronounced with the of ''goat'' even though it is derived from ''pole'' .

In broad Cockney, the phonetic difference between the two phonemes may be rather small and they may be distinguished by nothing more than the openness of the first element, so that ''goat'' is pronounced whereas ''goal'' is pronounced .

''Doll–dole'' merger

The ''doll–dole'' merger is a conditioned merger, for some Londoners, of and before word-final , which may be caused by the ''Goat'' split and the subsequent merger of with . As a result, ''doll'' and ''dole'' may become homophones. If the is morpheme-final, as in ''doll''-''dole'', the underlying vowel is still distinguished in derived forms such as ''dolling''/''doling''.

Where the is not word-final, however, the distinction is not recoverable. That may lead to ''sold'' having the same vowel sound as ''solve'' as well as hypercorrections such as for ''solve'' (RP ). There do not appear to be any minimal pairs in this environment since RP and are in more-or-less complementary distribution in stressed syllables, with before and (e.g. ''golf'', ''dolphin'', ''solve'', ''revolve'') and elsewhere (e.g. ''bolt'', ''polka'', ''gold'', ''soldier'', ''holster'').

''Goose'' split

Similar to the ''Goat'' split, the ''Goose'' split is a process affecting some Southeastern English dialects, where the ''Goose'' vowel, which is typically , backs to before . Also like the ''Goat'' split, the Goose split often affects related words, leading to minimal pairs, e.g. ruler (a king or queen) with backing vs. ruler (a measuring device) , or cooler vs. the name Kula . A similar backing change has occurred in many North American dialects, but this has remained allophonic.

''Fool–fall'' merger

For some English speakers in the UK, the vowels of ''goose'' and ''thought'' may be merged before dark syllable-final /l/, which may be caused by the ''Goose'' split and the subsequent merger of with . This neutralization has been found to exist for clusters of speakers in the southern UK, especially for speakers from areas of the south coast and the Greater London area.

''Vile–vial'' merger

The ''vile–vial'' merger is where the words in the ''vile'' set ending with (''bile'', ''file'', ''guile'', ''I'll'', ''Kyle'', ''Lyle'', ''mile'', ''Nile'', ''pile'', ''rile'', ''smile'', ''stile'', ''style'', ''tile'', ''vile'', ''while'', ''wile'') rhyme with words in the ''vial'' set ending with (''decrial'', ''denial'', ''dial'', ''espial'', ''Niall'', ''phial'', ''trial'', ''vial'', ''viol''). This merger involves the dephonemicization of schwa that occurs after a vowel and before , causing the vowel- sequence to be pronounced as either one or two syllables.

This merger may also be encountered with other vowel rhymes too, including:
* (''gaol'', ''sale'', ''tail'', etc.) and (''betrayal'', ''Jael''), usually skewing towards two syllables.
* (''coil'', ''soil'', etc.) and (''loyal'', ''royal''), usually skewing towards two syllables.
* (''ceil'', ''feel'', ''steal'', etc.) and (''real''), usually skewing towards two syllables.
* (''all'', ''drawl'', ''haul'', etc.) and (''withdrawal''), usually skewing towards one syllable.
* (''bowl'', ''coal'', ''hole'', ''roll'', ''soul'', etc.) and (''Joel'', ''Noel''), usually skewing towards one syllable.
* (''cool'', ''ghoul'', ''mewl'', ''rule'', ''you'll'', etc.) and (''cruel'', ''dual'', ''duel'', ''fuel'', ''gruel'', ''jewel''), usually skewing towards one syllable.
* (''owl'', ''scowl'', etc.) and (''bowel'', ''dowel'', ''Powell'', ''towel'', ''trowel'', ''vowel''), inconsistently skewing towards either one or two syllables. Some words may wander across this boundary even in some non-merging accents, such as ''owl'' with , and ''bowel'' with .
* In some rhotic accents, (''girl'', ''hurl'', ''pearl'', etc.) and (''referral''), usually skewing towards two syllables. This historically happened to the word ''squirrel'', which was previously (and still is in certain accents), but it actually became one syllable in General American today. But some accents with one-syllable ''squirrel'' later broke it again into two syllables, but as .
* In some rhotic ''father–bother'' merged accents, (''Carl'', ''marl'', etc.) and (''coral'', ''moral''), usually skewing towards two syllables.

For many speakers, the vowels in ''cake'', ''meet'', ''vote'' and ''moot'' can become centering diphthongs before , leading to pronunciations like , , and for ''tail'', ''teal'', ''toll'' and ''tool''.

Merger of non-prevocalic , , , with

In Cockney, non-prevocalic (as in ''bull''), (as in ''pool''), (as in ''bottle'') and (as in ''call'') can all merge with the of ''thought'', thus reintroducing the phoneme in the word-final position where, according to one analysis, only can occur (see thought split): . The last three words can contrast with the open variety of (which is not distinct from and and often also encompasses - see cure-force merger), as in ''core'', ''bore'' and ''paw'': , also in pairs such as ''stalled'' - ''stored'' .

The merger of , and is the most usual and leads to ''musical'' being homophonous with ''music hall'' as . Cockney speakers usually regard both syllables of ''awful'' as rhyming: .

The merger of with has been reported to occur in New Zealand English, which does not feature the thought split (leading to a larger number of potential homophones).

In the following list, the only homophonous pairs that are included are those involving and . As the merger is restricted to non-rhotic accents with close , in the fifth and sixth columns is assumed to cover not only but also and . In the case of cockney, the sixth column does ''not'' participate in the merger.

There is a large amount of potential homophones involving adjectives with the suffix -able and phrases consisting of a related verb, the indefinite article and the nouns ''bull'', ''ball'' and ''boar''. However, they require not only emphatically stressing the verb but also no glottal stop before the indefinite article (e.g. ''afford a bull/ball/boar'' cannot be pronounced as , nor ), which makes the homophony between the phrases and the adjectives ending in -able less likely than the homophony between the phrases themselves for speakers who have the merger. Again, phrases involving the noun ''boar'' are distinct for speakers with the thought split regardless of stress: ('afford a boar').

Other mergers

Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006:73) mention four mergers before that may be under way in some accents of North American English, and which require more study:
* and (''bull'' vs ''bowl'')
* and (''hull'' vs ''hall'')
* and (''bull'' vs ''hull'') (effectively undoing the foot-strut split before )
* and (''hull'' vs ''bowl'')

See also

* Phonological history of the English language
* Phonological history of English vowels
* English-language vowel changes before historic r

References

Bibliography

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{{DEFAULTSORT:English-Language Vowel Changes Before Historic L
Australian English
New Zealand English
American English
Splits and mergers in English phonology