From: Andrew Jarrette
Message: 41429
Date: 2005-10-14
Brian M. Scott wrote:
> I don't find this at all surprising: in my experience U.S.
> /æ/ is often distinctly higher than [æ], though not so high
> as [E], /E/ is similarly shifted, in some cases as far as
> [I].
Since /æ/ is tensed and lengthened, and develops a centring glide in
many varieties of US English, it may produce a diphthong whose
starting-point is actually as high as [I]. Cf. the anecdotes (quoted by
Labov) on the homophony of <Ann> and <Ian>, etc. In the Northern Cities
Shift, in particular, tense /æ/ becomes higher than /E/, which instead
of rising undergoes centralisation, so that outsiders mishear <better>
as "butter".
-- I am just wondering why it seems that you didn't read the later parts of my message, where I talk about /ae/ being /E&/ or /I&/ before nasals only in the majority of North American speech, and being /a/ elsewhere in Canada (and being /a/ everywhere in parts of England and Canada), but being a more raised vowel elsewhere in the US. I believe that many Americans actually have /E/ for "short e" and /E:/ for "short a". I try to analyze it as instead of opening their mouths fully, they pronounce an easier mid-open vowel, but the original vertically long open mouth becomes transformed into a temporally long vowel, as the distinguishing feature. But the /a/ or near-/a/ pronunciation is also not uncommon in the US, among educated speakers in California and the West Coast and some central-northeastern areas. But it seems nowadays that only New Yorkers among Americans preserve /ae/ (almost /a/) before /r/ - everyone else has replaced it with /E/ or more usually /E:/ (and sometimes /Ir/ or /I:r/ or /I&r/), so that "marry" sounds the same as "Mary". In Canada the US pronunciation has become dominant especially in the east, but in the west and among some both more- and less-educated speakers in the east, one still hears /ar/ or /aer/. It's all interesting for me, born in Trinidad and Tobago, where there is no /ae/, only pure /a/, and which I hear my parents and relatives say all the time, and which I cling to before nasals and /r/ despite otherwise having a typical educated North American accent, because I find it aesthetically and historically more pleasing.