Re: ai to a

I can't say for sure, but as a Californian, to my ears, the dropping of 'i' from 'ai' is southern/Appalachian but not New England.    Just listening to Kennedy in youtube's 'Inaugural Speech'    ('my fellow americans' + 'kennedy') gives you clear pronunciation of 'ai' as in 'my' 'right' and 'within aw-a lifetime'.
Certainly, most prominently in New England speech is the dropping of terminal -r.     as in 'more', 'failure' (failya)
'course'   etc

From: Andrew Jarrette
Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 5:00 PM
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [tied] Re: PGmc question

--- In cybalist@... s.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> Another example of this terrible feeling of dï¿½jï¿½ vu is the development
> of PGmc. *ai > OE a: (/A:/), which also is happening or has happened in
> several modern accents.
>

I know: Bill Clinton (e.g. [ma:] for 'my', [ta:m] for 'time', [ra:t] for 'right', etc.); seems primarily a Southern thing but also some New England as I believe John F. Kennedy had a similar pronunciation. But I think this pronunciation of /aI/ is dwindling with the passage of generations while the [ï¿½o] etc. etc. pronunciations of /aU/ are still going pretty strong, it seems, in many regions.

Andrew