Talk:General American English

Classification of /oʊ/ as a monophthong according to Wells (and this article)

I'm not familiar with Wells' classification of vowels in American English, but I'm quite confused why the "goat", "home", "toe" vowel is listed as a monophthong. Has there been some sound change in American English in this vowel, or was Wells just wrong? The article does also gives the vowel's IPA diphthong transcription, but doesn't mention why it's considered a monophthong according to Wells (or indeed why it's categorised under the "pure" vowels in this article, despite the article giving its IPA transcription as /oʊ/)

Can anyone shed any light on this? Or perhaps add a note to the article explaining the reason for the conflict (both internally to the article, and with the reality of General American English, at least in the present day)

--Tomatoswoop (talk) 05:19, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@Tomatoswoop: Search for /i, u, eɪ, oʊ, ɑ/ are considered to compose a natural class of tense monophthongs in General American, especially for speakers with the cot–caught merger. in the article. There's your explanation. I agree that using a monophthongal long back [oː] is probably not a part of General American. It's more Canadian, Scottish or Northern English. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 09:29, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) See Accents of English, vol. 1, pp. 120–1. Wells analyzes FLEECE, FACE, GOOSE, and GOAT in GA as underlyingly tense monophthongs, but transcribes FACE as /eɪ/ to avoid confusion with RP /e/, which represents DRESS, not FACE. Nardog (talk) 09:34, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Very interesting, thank you both for drawing my attention to that. Whether that analysis should be considered the "consensus" and therefore reflected in the categorisation system of this article, I absolutely couldn't comment, but assuming that this categorisation is the right way to go about this article, maybe it would be prudent to move that clarification to a more prominent place. Perhaps just before the categorisation into "pure vowels" and dipthongs. Or if not to move the whole bullet point, perhaps add a small note just before the pure vowels table to point out that /oʊ/ and /eɪ/, while written in the table as diphthongs are instead here considered part of the group of "sometimes diphthongised tense vowels" as per Wells. --Tomatoswoop (talk) 03:26, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Also, Kbb2, if you disagree that putting /oʊ/ into the the monophthongal category is the right choice, perhaps you have another reference about general American that is better? I'm no expert, but it does seem to me that the American /oʊ/ is clearly a diphthong, not just a tense vowel, isn't the monophthongal /o/ exactly what Americans mock when parodying a Canadian accent? I won't change it because I'm talking about my own impression here, not some peer reviewed reference, and I'm no expert.--Tomatoswoop (talk) 03:37, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Are there major sources beyond Wells's 1982 one that regard /oʊ/ and /eɪ/ as monophthongs "underlyingly" or of a "natural class" (what does this mean?)? In other words, is this widely agreed upon and practiced in the American phonological community (of which I'm not even sure we can say the British phonetician Wells is a part) or just one phonetician's view? Labov, for example, seems to avoid speaking of monophthongs vs. diphthongs at the phonemic level in favor of a distinction between "long vs. short vowels" or "checked vs. free vowels" (which Wells uses too). Wolfdog (talk) 23:38, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Narrow transcriptions

I notice Kbb2 has a tendency to resist and change narrow transcriptions to broader ones. I get the thinking behind this (that we go with a broad phonetic transcription), but, especially when we have exact audio files of speakers, why can't we have very narrow transcriptions? (Maybe we could represent both?) Wolfdog (talk) 12:34, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

@Wolfdog: I assume you're talking about this revert? I reverted you because /l/ in the syllable coda before a consonant or a pause is always velarized (or vocalized) in Standard English (save for very few speakers). The canonical value of the IPA sign ⟨l⟩ does signify a lateral approximant without a secondary articulation, but it can be apical or laminal and dental, alveolar or postalveolar, depending on the language. I see no reason to mark the velarized allophone of /l/ because of how predictable its occurrence is.

The vowel in [mɛlk] probably also isn't a perfect cardinal [ɛ], no? What about the velar stop? Can it be preglottalized or perhaps slightly aspirated? If so, that's not a perfect canonical [k] either.

Are there any other edits of mine you'd like to discuss? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:02, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

The reason to mark the velarized allophone is because it's pronounced that way in the exact audio, which is also a great example of how Americans in general tend to pronounce /l/. I don't understand the urge to change that. I've just noticed you have a tendency to remove narrow markings that make sense and could be useful. Why can't [ˈpɑɹɾi], for instance, be [ˈpʰɑɹɾi]... which is actually what a listener will hear in the audio? Wolfdog (talk) 13:45, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

@Wolfdog: Ok, but what about [ɛ] and [k]?

I don't find it a particularly great example of that. Coda /l/ is velarized by almost all speakers of what you could call Standard English. It's not a marked feature of any accent (in fact, the opposite of that is a marked feature of Welsh and Irish English) and it's allophonic. Plus, you're still assuming that [l] can only denote a 'neutral' lateral approximant without a secondary articulation. It's not true. Besides, why should we only denote the velarization and not the fact that it's apical alveolar? Because the canonical value of IPA ⟨l⟩ can be apical or laminal and dental, alveolar or postalveolar. It's not apical alveolar by definition. Plus, [ɫ] (assuming that this denotes a velarized apical alveolar [l]) isn't the only allophone of /l/, as this consonant can be advanced to the dental position before /θ/ and retracted to the postalveolar place of articulation before /r/. It's also devoiced after onset /p, t, k/.

I write the lateral approximant in [mɛlk] as such because I consider the velarization diacritic to be implied by context, just as the apical diacritic is also implied by context here. In play [pleɪ], the velarized, apical and devoiced diacritics are implied by context as well, whereas in wealth [wɛlθ] the implied diacritics are velarized, laminal and dental. We follow this practice on Australian English phonology, English phonology, Received Pronunciation and other articles. There's no need for a special treatment of a few articles to the exclusion of others.

Similarly, the initial /p/ in party is aspirated by almost all speakers of Standard English. It's the standard allophone of word-initial /p/ and using an actual unaspirated [p] sounds like /b/ to native speakers. You need to differentiate between the two transcriptions. The only signs in [ˈpɑɹɾi] that you could read literally are the first one (the primary stress mark) and the fifth one (the symbol for an alveolar tap). ⟨ɑ⟩ doesn't denote a cardinal [ɑ] but a sound that is more front than that and ⟨i⟩ doesn't denote a cardinal [i] but a sound that is more mid-centralized than that. ⟨ɹ⟩ doesn't denote an alveolar approximant either but a postalveolar or a retroflex one, so ⟨p⟩ in this context denotes an aspirated voiceless bilabial plosive. Broad [ˈpɑɹɾi] translates into narrow [ˈpʰɑ̟ɹ̠ɾi̽].

The voiced plosives are in fact typically unaspirated voiceless or partially voiced, so writing [ˈpʰɑɹɾi] for party and [du] (rather than [d̥u]) for do would be inconsistent even when you disregard the other inconsistencies.

This isn't the first time I see an editor say that using the dark l symbol or the aspiration diacritic somehow makes the transcription narrow. We could write milk with the dark l symbol if we talked about velarization. If we wanted to be consistent, we could use narrow transcription in all places - but there's no point in doing that. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 14:29, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

You're turning back transcriptions where you feel extra detail is already implied by context, but my argument is let's not assume anything is implied. Why make assumptions when we can be straightforward to readers at all levels of familiarity with IPA? This is a website that anyone can view and edit, not a linguistics library. As for your party argument, I get that you're worried about a slippery slope, but [pʰ] is a general established feature of American English (and even English overall, as you say -- and it is clearly what the speaker is doing in this one particular recording) in the exact same way as [ɫ] -- these are in fact the standard AmE allophones -- whereas [i̽] is a token that you're hearing, more open to subjective different transcriptions based on listener. So, yes, I get that initial /p/ in party is aspirated by almost all speakers of Standard English, yet I'm not getting why that means we should leave out the aspiration diacritic. So what? You think aspiration is assumed so let's leave it out, and I'm saying let's not assume that. Not everyone here is an IPA expert: let's leave it in.

I also think you're missing that I'm saying when we have exact audio recordings, even [ˈpʰɑ̟ɹ̠ɾi] would be perfectly appropriate and acceptable. I never brought up the Western New England English example you keep arguing about, but I guess I will now. That revert just continued to make me aware of how you revert narrowing transcriptions that can be useful: WNEE speakers certainly use a velarized /l/ and I still don't really see how it could hurt to show that. I wonder what other editors think. Wolfdog (talk) 23:31, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

I lean towards more narrow transcriptions, even when the phonetic detail conveys predictable allophony, but I do understand the concern about too much detail. Perhaps a good middle ground here would be, outside of immediate discussions of a particular feature (e.g. vowel nasalization, precise vowel height, de-voicedness of lenis stops), we stick to transcribing English with the level of detail we would give it in an IPA for X convention if it were another language we were transcribing for Wikipedia articles. That is, we avoid the level of detail that requires diacritics. Off the top of my head, I imagine that we'd want to indicate predictable vowel length, aspiration, l-velarization, vowel reduction, flapping, and glottalization. I'm sure there's more we could indicate, but we'd want to come to an agreement on it. We can probably get away with avoiding r-coloring of vowels and syllabic vowels consonants, but we'd want to be consistent on how we represent those. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 00:29, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

@Wolfdog: "Let's not assume anything is implied" is never how the IPA works. All sorts of stuff is implied in most transcriptions; in fact, this is how you transcribe words yourself whenever you don't use fully narrow transcription. This is why I asked whether [ɛ] in milk is a cardinal [ɛ] and whether the final [k] was an actual [k] or a preglottalized [ʔk]. It was a recent revert of yours, so it made sense to me to bring it up (especially since it's relevant to the topic of this discussion). You should read the quotes on User:Nardog.

The voiceless stops /p, t, k/ have many allophones in English, and generally they're most variable in the word-final position. How would you transcribe the word top? [tʰɑp]? If so, that's inconsistent. If you wrote it [tʰɑp̚] that'd be only slightly closer to the most common variant as the citation form varies between [tʰɑp] (perhaps with slight aspiration of the final /p/) and [tʰɑp̚], but when top occurs immediately before a word that begins with a vowel it can no longer be pronounced [tʰɑp̚] but either [tʰɑp] or [tʰɑp͡ʔ] (the final /p/ may be glottaly masked). [tʰɑp͡ʔ] may sound the same as [tʰɑp̚] but it's physically impossible to pronounce an intervocalic unreleased plosive. So, given the fact that final /p, t, k/ are actually more variable than initial /p, t, k/ it only makes sense to use the broad transcription of ⟨p, t, k⟩ for those sounds, so what's the problem of transcribing initial /p, t, k/ with ⟨p, t, k⟩? They're invariably aspirated, so [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] are the only possible allophones.

Narrow transcription of English plosives is just as problematic in the case of RP: the citation form of top is any of the following: [tʰɒp, tʰɒpʰ, tʰɒʔp] (or with affrication instead of aspiration, the vowel is also variable [ɑ ~ ɒ ~ ɒ̝ ~ ɔ̞]), but before a vowel only [tʰɒp, tʰɒpʰ] are possible. So what do we do? We write it [tɒp]. I think we should strive for more or less the same level of narrowness across all articles on English accents and to leave our excessive detail that we probably wouldn't include in articles on the pronunciation of other languages.

Note that speakers who consistently release their final stops don't sound native in American English, so [tʰɑp] can't be said to be a narrow transcription of top.

You're worried that laymen may assume ⟨l⟩ to mean a clear lateral approximant - but that's on them, not on us (or perhaps it's also on us if Wikipedia is actually failing to convey that there are levels of narrowness of phonetic transcription). American /l/ is consistently velarized in all positions, at least in General American, so our readers can always assume [l] to be equal to [lˠ]. In fact, all allophones of /l/ in GA can be defined as velarized lateral approximants, because GA /l/ can be apical or laminal and dental, alveolar or postalveolar, depending on the environment (even though the canonical value of ⟨l⟩ in GA is a velarized apical alveolar lateral approximant).

If we were to also use the ⟨ɫ⟩ in Received Pronunciation, that'd introduce complication to transcription as RP /l/ is dark only before consonants (but not /j/ - another complication) and pauses, so that law, ceiling, million and call up would have to be transcribed with ⟨l⟩ but call and pills would be written with ⟨ɫ⟩. It's better to write [lɔː, siːlɪŋ, mɪljən, kɔːl ʌp, kɔːl, pɪlz] and let the reader figure out which laterals are velarized and which aren't (the rule is very simple, and the fact that General American /l/ is pretty much categorically velarized is even easier to remember). In General South African English call up is [kɔːɫ ʌp] but other words are pronounced the same as in RP. It's simpler to just use ⟨l⟩ for these sounds. Also, younger speakers of RP (but not of General South African English) may vocalize the final /l/ in call and pills, so they should actually be written [k̠ʰɔ̝ːɫ ~ k̠ʰɔ̝ːʊ̯] and [pʰɪ̈ɫz̥ ~ pʰɪ̈ɤ̯z̥] in truly narrow transcription (the /l/ in call up can also be [ɫ] or [ʊ̯] if you put a glottal stop in front of up. So even in RP there's some variability).

It's not our goal to transcribe the recordings but the variety of English in question (I remember that you even argued for transcribing a cot-caught merged pronunciation of water as such in this article). I don't consider [ˈpʰɑ̟ɹ̠ɾi̽] to be an acceptable transcription of party in this context, and by saying that you do you're showing that you need to better differentiate between narrow and broad variants of phonetic transcription. As you said yourself, this isn't a linguistic paper but an encyclopedia.

Also, note that IPA ⟨ɫ⟩ denotes a velarized or pharyngealized lateral (depending on the language), not just a velarized one. American /l/ is rarely (if ever) pharyngeal, so [mɛɫk] isn't really more narrow than [mɛlk], at least in some sense. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:18, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks -- Nardog's page is helpful in some ways, though I have to read your above explanation about a million more times to wrap my head around it. I still find it odd that predictable sounds are the ones most left out rather than the ones that can most easily be left in. My study of IPA was that it was indeed largely phonetic and less so that single symbols represent in fact vast allophonic possibilities in phonetic transcription. Anyway, it just seems to be you and me mostly. If people are ever interested in coming up with a standard for American English here on Wikipedia, I'd be happy to help engage in that work. Wolfdog (talk) 15:46, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I for one would be in complete support of Aeusoes1's suggestion for a compromise. In fact, I really was trying to argue for some kind of middle ground too, since I recognize Kbb2 is concerned about a slippery slope. So! As Aeusoes1 said (I think more clearly than I was able to), I'd agree with indicating down to a "predictable" level of detail, and I'd be totally on-board for the specifics suggested: predictable vowel length, aspiration, l-velarization, vowel reduction, flapping, and glottalization. This would cover of course the two features I mentioned above, but not such insane level of detail as the [i̽] token that worried Kbb2. Wolfdog (talk) 11:11, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Side-note: I just noticed/remembered that we already had a discussion in the same vein as this with one Erutuon, Nardog etc. over a year ago titled "Aspiration". Although I just skimmed it (and will need to reread it a couple of times), it did seem there was a general consensus for a middle-ground position -- as Aeusoes1 says, now we'd want to come to an agreement on the details. Kbb2, under "Mr KEBAB", it seemed even you were more shifting towards a compromise position at that time. Erutuon seemed in favor of [pʰ] for both pay and play, whereas you commented I think using [CʰV] with vowels and [CC̥] with consonantal sonorants is a good and necessary compromise. Anyway, I'd love to participate in a discussion on the details we'd want to include. Wolfdog (talk) 11:37, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: Our IPA for X conventions don't include aspiration and velarization when those aren't phonemic. Flapping is different than that because it's less predictable than aspiration (which in fact is fully predictable, as is velarization), so we should include it. I'd argue that using distinctively fully voiced stops in the citation forms of words such as bad (especially in the case of the final /d/) sounds just as non-native as not aspirating initial /p, t, k/, even though the vowel length is sufficient to differentiate between bad and bat.

By predictable vowel length do you mean simply transcribing the free vowels with ⟨ː⟩, including in phonemic transcription (so that keep is transcribed /kiːp/ and father /ˈfɑːðər/? If so, I fully agree with that.

What exactly do you mean by vowel reduction? /ə/ is widely considered to have phonemic status in English and that's how we treat it here.

I think that NURSE and LETTER should be transcribed as r-colored. Wells (or whoever it was) made an unfortunate decision to treat those as vowels, rather than as syllabic consonantal approximants. Transcriptions such as [ɜːɹ] or [əɹ] are, IMO, bad practice and even LPD and CEPD write those as r-colored, even though their transcriptions are otherwise to a large extent phonemic. The only difference between SQUARE and NURSE/LETTER is that the latter is a syllabic consonant (sometimes pronounced with a slight schwa onglide), whereas the latter is a front vowel followed by a consonant. Transcriptions such as [ɜːɹ] or [əɹ] fail to show that.

If we want to show glottalization then I think that we also want to explicitly denote syllabic consonants, because pronunciations such as [ˈbʌʔən] for button are probably still used by a minority of speakers. Plus, it's a widely accepted practice to explicitly denote optional schwas (or syllabic sonorants, same thing really) in transcription. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:18, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

@Kbb2: Outside of aspiration and velarization, I think we're in broad agreement on most of what you're saying. I think diacritics are the better framework to consider than what would sound non-native or unnatural if it were missing. We should be phonetically precise enough to be accurate, but not so much that we would need combining diacritics on vowels.

I think that indicating aspiration and velarization would be helpful to lay readers. We specialists consider the distribution of aspirated phones to be predictable, but lay readers may not (even if they're native English speakers who produce it). Indicating aspiration is more phonetically accurate and doesn't fall down the trap of too much phonetic detail that we want to avoid.

Velarization is only predictable within a given dialect, and a reader shouldn't be expected to know it. I think we wouldn't want to indicate velarization only if we don't think we could provide consistent accuracy in transcriptions. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:15, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I, of course, still agree will Aeusoes1's points. I am and have been concerned with lay readers. As long as we come to some common agreement, we can practically transcribe American English however we want within IPA parameters. Wolfdog (talk) 13:45, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Ok, so we add aspiration, length marks, remove the rhotacized diacritic and write NURSE with [ɜːɹ] and LETTER with [əɹ] and transcribe the dark l's. Would everyone be happy with that? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:20, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

That all sounds good to me... I think, ha. Can I just get three clarifications, Kbb2? See below:

1. We're talking about coming to an agreement on what basic level of narrow transcription to use across all articles falling under American English, correct?
2. Can you remind me what we're meaning here by predictability of length marks (which is non-phonemic but still fairly predictable in AmE)? i.e., Are we talking about, for example, where lengthening tends to happen in AmE before voiced consonants but not before voiceless ones? That use of length marks? In the articles you've edited so far, I think you've been simply aligning the length marks to the BrE style; is there a reason to do this for AmE?
3. Kbb2, I thought you would prefer something like [ɚ] to represent NURSE and lettER rather than [ɜːɹ] and [əɹ], no? (Though I do love your use of the inverted "R": [ɹ].)

Wolfdog (talk) 12:21, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I am in favor of showing aspiration and velarization, but I second Wolfdog's request for clarification about length marks, and prefer transcribing both nurse and letter as an r-colored schwa [ɚ]. — Eru·tuon 19:50, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Kbb2, can you clarify? Wolfdog (talk) 19:06, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

OK, so I propose GenAm transcription should include these features (some of which are being newly proposed, I think):

• /l/ is transcribed in all environments as [ɫ]
• /r/ is transcribed in all environments as [ɹ]
• Both NURSE and lettER are transcribed in all environments as [əɹ]
• Aspiration is shown in appropriate environments; e.g., popping as [ˈpʰɑpɪŋ]
• /æ/ is transcribed before /m/ and /n/ as [ɛə]
• /t/ is transcribed in appropriate, highly predictable environments as [ʔ]; e.g. catfish as [kʰæʔfɪʃ]
• /t/ and /d/ are transcribed in appropriate, highly predictable environments as [ɾ]; e.g. rating [ˈɹeɪɾɪŋ] (though some words, like skeletal, appear to vary more greatly: [ˈskɛɫətʰəɫ] or [ˈskɛɫəɾəɫ])

There may be others features to delineate, like the inclusion or exclusion of length marks; I personally feel this is a minor element of AmE, trivial for GenAm, but we can discuss. Thanks, all. Wolfdog (talk) 20:10, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

GenAm has dark l in all contexts?! — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:08, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Have you seen the bullet on L-velarization under "Consonants"? Wolfdog (talk) 13:06, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I see what you mean. That looks very suspect and runs contrary to what I've seen in general about GA. I'll have to dig into the matter, but based on what I know so far, I wouldn't be in favor of velarizing l in all contexts, just in the syllable coda. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:35, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

It's a prominent feature of Received Pronunciation (and I guess many accents in England) that l is noticeably less velarized in certain positions than in General American or Australian. It's one feature that I have occasionally noticed in British actors who are using an American accent: they failed to sufficiently velarize their syllable-initial l, giving an odd sort of Irish quality to certain words (sometimes mixed with incongruous features like r-dropping). In my own speech the main contrast between initial and final l seems to be that the final l is somewhat more velarized and the tongue often doesn't touch the teeth or alveolar ridge (l-vocalization). — Eru·tuon 21:41, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with every one of Erutuon's above sentiments and have made similar observations myself. There may be slight articulatory differences between initial and final /l/ in AmE, but they're both still fairly velar. John C. Wells' Accents of English (Volume 3) says "GenerAm /l/ tends to be rather dark. Before stressed vowels it is neutral or only slightly velarized; preconsonantally and finally definitely dark (velarized)" (490). So... I'd still err on the side of showing velarization in all cases for our broad GenAm transcription. Certainly, as Erutuon suggests, if someone pronounced a perfectly clear initial /l/ and a perfectly dark initial /l/, only the first could sound to my ears like a non-American (or perhaps Spanish-influenced American) dialect. Even the darkest pronunciation of an initial /l/ would fly completely under my radar. Wolfdog (talk) 13:40, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems like the onset-coda allophony present in RP is echoed in GA, except that onset /l/ can have a slight degree of velarization. But that varies from speaker to speaker. Transcribing all of these as dark would make our transcriptions more opaque by eliminating any representation of this allophony and implying that GA is like Scottish English, which has noticeably dark /l/s in all position. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:35, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, I guess we just disagree then. Wells is saying that velarization is basically everywhere in GenAm and only differs from one context to another by degree. I think the "echoing" or light/dark allophonic distinction in GenAm is insignificant (probably even absent in some AmE speakers... I certainly don't hear it in my own conscious speech). Every American /l/ is dark compared with RP, as confirmed by Erutuon when noticing some British actors' /l/ pronunciations still sounding wrong when attempting American accents. What Erutuon is presumably noticing is a clear /l/ in non-coda positions when listening to these actors. Americans don't have any clear /l/. Wolfdog (talk) 16:40, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The quote you've provided indicates that Wells believes it to be "slight velarization." The difference between slight velarization and velarization is not insignificant and Wells demonstrates he sees these two as different elsewhere in Accents of English, when he says (p. 74):

"In RP, GenAm, and many other accents two perceptibly different allophones may be distinguished, clear and dark. The details of the environment in which the dark allophone is used vary, however: thus intervocalically, as in silly, RP uses clear /l/, thus [ˈsɪlɪ], while GenAm uses dark, thus [ˈsɪɫɪ]. In this word, as in others where /l/ is intervocalic (valley, yellow, column), RP thus sides with Irish English against GenAm; compare words such as belt, milk, halt, where RP and GenAm agree in having dark /l/, but Irish English uses a clear variety."

The use of a dark l in additional phonetic contexts may help account for Erutuon's perception of noticeably darker l's in American English that are clear in RP. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:23, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Would you be in favor then of transcribing GenAm lilly as [ˈlɪɫi]? Wolfdog (talk) 18:04, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes I would. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:25, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Do we know how this allophony for /l/ works postconsonantally in GenAm? For instance, is the /l/ in /fl/ clearer than the /l/ in /gl/ due to voiced/voiceless reasons? Wolfdog (talk) 16:51, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Probably. My guess is that the differences are slight and the general tendency is how Wells describes it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 03:14, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Here's another source that suggests "General American /l/ is velarized in all positions" (though I admit the sentence doesn't seem to make grammatical sense to me). And this source says (see under the section "Velarized alveolar lateral) that a velarized /l/ is used "in most Northern varieties of American English" which I take to mean non-Southern (including GenAm) varieties. Another source confirms (per my allophonic distinction question) that American dark /l/ appears strongest in both postvocalic and intervocalic positions, so it works for me too that we represent it that way. Wolfdog (talk) 14:41, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm interested in the Kbb2's proposal to change the transcription of the NURSE vowel to a syllabic consonant, presumably [ɹ̥]. Does anyone know of a published transcription that does this? — Marquetry28 (talk) 06:53, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't have a strong preference in any direction, but I notice sources that use [ɚː] here or [ɚ] here. I do see one use of syllabic [ɹ] here, which happens to be discussing Canadian English but which could just as easily be discussing GenAm, I suppose. Wolfdog (talk) 14:41, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Old vowel chart

When I first read this article, I found two vowel charts. The first was a graph of vowels for GA speakers without the cot-caught merger; the second, with. Apparently the one for speakers with the cot-caught merger was deleted, along with the reference to the source from which it came. Why was it removed? AnUnnamedUser (talk) 02:24, 21 July 2019 (UTC)AnUnnamedUser (talk) 02:24, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@AnUnnamedUser: (We're talking about this chart, which originally was uploaded as [1]) It's not useful. The article already explains that the merger is a possibility and how it works. No vowel chart on Wikipedia (maybe with one or two exceptions) covers all of the allophones of any given phoneme.

This chart, which is how the source used to depict (it's been deleted) the vowels of AmE, isn't 100% correct: /u/ is too back, /ɪ/ too front, /ɛ/ too high and [ɚ] could be too low (I think it should be close-mid, like Australian NURSE). Whether we choose this one or the Wells's one would be arbitrary, except for the fact that the latter is based on a more reliable source that actually exists.

Besides, one of your edit summaries reads Kbb2, I think you accidentally deleted the reference for the proper chart with the vowels for GenAm with the low back merger instead of the one without it. Why would I remove Wells's chart and what's "improper" about it? I've demonstrated that the monophthong chart from that Australian source is just as flawed if not more so.

The source itself has deleted the chart with the cot-caught merger, along with the New Zealand English charts and the RP ones. The RP ones are roughly the same as the ones in Received Pronunciation. The NZE ones are clearly unreliable (/e/ is too low, /ɵː/ is too close to /ʉː/, the ending point of /æʊ/ is wrong and so is the starting point of /ɐʉ/), and so is the diphthong chart of cot-caught-merged AmE (the starting point of /eɪ/ is too low, the starting points of /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ too high and the starting point of /oʊ/ is probably too low and/or not central enough (it should be [ɵʊ] or something like that). Wells's diphthong chart looks more correct and less chaotic. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 06:39, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 2 August 2019

General American → General American English – (edited) The phrase General American will be meaningless to most readers until they click the link to the article and begin reading. Article titles should be natural and recognizable for the non-specialist reader, which generally includes using nouns or noun phrases. American as a noun for the language is fairly uncommon in normal usage; see Google Ngram, for instance. (Yes, I'm aware of the 2005 PBS series; it seems obvious that the title was meant to be attention-getting and somewhat tongue-in-cheek, rather than refecting normal usage.) Insofar as General American is used in academia, it's specialist jargon that should be clarified. This is consistent with other pages in Category:American English, such as Southern American English, Western American English, New England English, Inland Northern American English, Appalachian English, etc. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:11, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

(Addendum) See this list of sources that use General American English for the linguistic variety. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:52, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. Unlike Southern American English, Western American English, New England English, Inland Northern American English, Appalachian English, etc., General American does not refer to a dialect with special vocabulary, morphology, etc., but merely to an accent (or a group of accents). Even texts written in a foreign variety of English can be, and frequently are, read using General American. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 23:11, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

  The lead sentence calls it the umbrella variety of American English. It's a form of English, whether a dialect, accent, or whatever. The suggestion that General American English refers to a specific dialect will only be picked up on by a small group of specialist readers; the risk of confusion there is small compared to the benefits of a more recognizable title for the average reader, in my opinion. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:19, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support. In the academic papers cited, "General American" is not ambiguous because they are linguistics papers, talking about accents being Southern or General American. The proposal is more natural and recognizable. I don't agree with the comment above me that "General American English" would imply that were a specific dialect, the "General" part of the name already implies it's about something broad. – Thjarkur (talk) 00:11, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

  It seems I wasn't clear enough. I meant "dialect" in the first sense mentioned in article dialect that also covers standard languages, not in the sense that a dialect is something that is only used locally. What I wanted to say was that General American is only a style of pronunciation, not a variety of English that differs from other Englishes on all linguistic levels. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 00:25, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

  @LiliCharlie: Then what about renaming the article General American accent? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:30, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

  At least that's not misleading. General American is an accent like Received Pronunciation, the Mid-Atlantic accent or General Australian, not a complete national variety of Standard English. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 02:07, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose – Where does the idea that article names should be self-evident come from? If that was the case we wouldn't need short descriptions, and disambiguation pages and hatnotes would be considerably shorter. If there's anything remotely close it's WP:NATURALDISAMBIG, but that's for when there's ambiguity. If there was, "General American accent" would at least make more sense than the proposed name. But I don't see a hatnote in this article, nor the necessity for a move. Nardog (talk) 01:27, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

  Per article titling policy, recognizability and naturalness are the first two criteria to consider. Can we assume that you would support a move to General American accent? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:37, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

  No – "General American" is a name "that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize", and is "what the subject is actually called in English". I find "General American accent" redundant, defying the "conciseness" criterion. Nardog (talk) 01:58, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

• Comment Your Ngram link hardly illustrates anything. It just means "speak/spoke English..." has been written more times than "speak/spoke American...", which includes "speak/spoke American English" etc. Nardog (talk) 01:58, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per LiliCharlie. Since there's no evidence given that "General American" is meaningless to most readers, this can be dismissed pretty easily. As can the notion that "General American" isn't a noun (it's a proper noun!). There's basically no justification for considering it specialist language in need of a common alternative. Sure, it appears more often in specialist literature, but that's because specialist literature talks about it a lot. There's no evidence that "General American English" (or "General American accent") exists as a common name alternative to "General American." No links to non-specialist literature, dictionaries, or even YouTube videos. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:11, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

  Please re-read the move request. I didn't say American for the language wasn't a noun; I said it was an uncommon noun in normal usage. The "evidence" that General American will be meaningless to most readers is its virtual non-use in everyday speech. As for links to non-specialist literarure, try Google. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:04, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

  I see. So by insisting that we include nouns or noun phrases, you're saying that readers might misinterpret "General American" as an adjective, not that it is one. Another guess that doesn't really have any substantiation.

  The search results you've provided with the sources doesn't really indicate what you think. Actually, it looks a lot like you've just slapped a search result without taking a close look at the results themselves. Let's go through a dozen:

  • Green (2002) uses the phrase "general American English" differently than the subject of this article. This is why she capitalizes it this special way. She is talking about the collective body of American English dialects, not the specific manner of pronunciation (accent) that is the subject of this article. You can see this when she discusses lexicon (p. 20), auxiliaries (p. 44), verbal paradigms (p. 74), and syntax and morphology (p. 76).
  • Wolfram & Schilling (2015) are doing the same. As you can see from their discussion of verbal paradigms (p. 380) and relative pronouns (p. 388).
  • Skandera & Burleigh (2005) do use the phrase "General American English" as synonymous with "General American" but they also use "Standard American English" which is not the same thing and quite a strange error. Nevertheless, we can call this a hit.
  • Schweke (2007) is talking about dialects (with mention of lexicons)
  • Brown (2006) is talking about grammar (auxiliary systems)
  • Bonfiglio (2010) shows up because "General American accent" is in quotes in reference to usage of the early 20th century. Hardly an indicator of contemporary usage.
  • Blumenfield (2013) does use the phrase "General American accent", though take note that he uses "General American" much more frequently.
  • McGuire (2016) is a hit.
  • Rank (2006) is a hit.
  • Dal Vera (2003) is not talking about GA.
  • Tench (2011) seems to use the phrase "General American accent" when introducing the concept to indicate it's an accent, but then slips into using just "General American" or "GA" for the remainder.

  So you've basically found two sources that actually say and do what you say they say and do. That's not common usage. Not even close. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 00:30, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

  "Standard American English" which is not the same thing and quite a strange error – the article we're discussing specifically states that Standard American English is an alternative name for the topic. Blumenfield (2013) ... uses "General American" much more frequently ... Tench (2011) slips into using just "General American" or "GA" for the remainder – the point is how the topics are introduced, since that is the purpose of the title we're discussing. No one is suggesting we replace "General American" with "General American English" throughout the entire article. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:00, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

  You've got the burden of proof here. Shifting the goalposts mid-conversation isn't going to help you. Nor is failing to address the arguments of other editors. You made a claim about general usage. Your claim was shown to be quite incorrect. It's hard to take you seriously when you can't even admit you were wrong. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 06:58, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

  See reply below. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:46, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per LilCharlie. General American refers to an accent, not a distinct dialect. That "dialect" is American English. Calidum 13:55, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Article titles should be what the thing is called, not what readers with no knowledge of the matter might expect the thing to be called. W. P. Uzer (talk) 22:21, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support. I think "General American" is too ambiguous of a title for the average reader. Moving to "General American English" or "General American accent" is completely appropriate. Rreagan007 (talk) 14:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  How is it ambiguous? What else does it refer to? Isn't it rather unkind to readers to misinform them as to what the subject of the article is actually called? W. P. Uzer (talk) 20:49, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  Honestly, when I first saw the title "General American", I had no idea what the heck it referred to. I thought maybe it was referring to an average American person, or perhaps that it was the name of a corporation. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:17, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

  It is the job of the article body to tell users what a term refers to. Page titles, as W. P. Uzer said, tell users what the thing is actually called. Thus we have a page called Oganesson, and it would be incorrect to rename it to something extended like Chemical element Oganesson or Oganesson element because non-experts might think Oganesson is the name of a corporation. In short, we do it the old-fashioned way: We expect users to read our articles, not to deduce an article's content from its title before jumping to the next page, though we do have lead sections providing for users with little time and patience. — P.S.: Mnemotechnically it is a good thing you first thought that General American referred to something else. Mentally contrasting two similar terms is a train of thought that serves your memory and helps you expand your vocabulary. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 04:31, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

  Actually, that's not correct. The subject of the article should be readily apparent from the title. That's why we use the most common name rather than the official name for article titles, so readers will be able to know from the title alone if it is the article that they are looking for. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:28, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

  In which case, "General American" would be the most common name. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 06:06, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

  Exactly. I've known the term General American for decades, and if there were an article entitled General American English I would suspect it deals with something else, maybe a controlled natural language similar to Basic English, not an accent like General Australian or General British. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 08:10, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

  The Oganesson article is not particularly relevant here, but in any case it's unambiguous, unlike "General American", which could potentially refer to a range of things. Titles should be natural and recognizable. This is laid out in the second paragraph of our titling policy. We don't expect readers to read every article to find out what the topic is. Several editors have now indicated that this article's title lacks recognizability in at least some cases. There is little to lose by giving readers more clarity and precision. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:54, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: according to some of the first sources cited in the article, such as Labov, Ash, & Boberg (2006) and Van Riper (1986), there is no scholarly consensus that the term "General American" refers solely to accent, as opposed to dialect. Therefore any objections along those lines seem to be a red herring. Nonetheless, it's fairly easy to find sources that specifically refer to "General American English" as a phonological system, that is, an accent or system of pronunciation, for instance Adger et al. (2007), Bauman-Wängler (2004),Blumenfeld (2002), Durand et al. (2014), Fogle (2008), Garn-Nunn & Lynn (2004), Green (2002), Hayden (1950), Kalackal (1985), Kennedy (2003), McMillan & Montgomery (1989), Romaine (1998), Silveiro & Watkins (2006), Teschner & Whitney (2004), and others. So "General American English" seems both commonly used and unambiguous, which is something to consider even if "General American" is the most common name used. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:48, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

  You might want to check our system of soft and hard redirects. Standard American English takes readers to a disambiguation page, not here, and explicitly says that it is technically incorrect to refer to General American as "Standard American English". Do you really not know the theoretical and practical problems with "Standard American English" as a concept? Do you not know that it's basically a myth as far as pronunciation goes? Why would we, a locus of accurate and accessible knowledge, want to denigrate ourselves with falsities for the sake of alleviating the slight discomfort some feel between when they learn they are ignorant about something and when they address that ignorance with a few sentences of light reading?

  Given that you've demonstrated several times in this thread alone a troubling difficulty in providing correct analysis on what literature does and does not say, I hope you can indulge all of us in actually providing page numbers and quotations to illustrate this lack of consensus that you allege. You may also want to elaborate to all of us how a source from 1986 (or 1950 for that matter) is still relevant on the matter of this consensus. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 06:47, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

  Shifting the goalposts mid-conversation isn't going to help you. I don't know what this is referring to. I directly responded to your points about "Standard American English" being an error, and the fact that two authors use "General American English" to introduce the topic, which is relevant to how we name the article.

  Nor is failing to address the arguments of other editors. Pot, meet kettle.

  You made a claim about general usage. The only such claim I have made is regarding the lack of usage of "General American" in everyday speech, which I think is just common sense.

  Standard American English takes readers to a disambiguation page, not here, and explicitly says that it is technically incorrect to refer to General American as "Standard American English". You might try reading this article, which states, "Some scholars, despite controversy, prefer the term Standard American English." Whether you or I think that's technically incorrect is irrelevant; we give ideas due weight based on their prominence in published, reliable sources.

  Do you really not know the theoretical and practical problems with "Standard American English" as a concept? Do you not know that it's basically a myth as far as pronunciation goes? None of this is relevant to how published, reliable sources use the term.

  Given that you've demonstrated several times in this thread alone a troubling difficulty in providing correct analysis on what literature does and does not say... That's just, like, your opinion, man. (Kindly refrain from poisoning the well, thanks.)

  I hope you can indulge all of us in actually providing page numbers and quotations... You could always try following the links I posted above, but if you insist:

  • "The Atlas data do not justify the labeling of any one dialect as "General American", a term promoted by John Kenyon to indicate a conservative Inland Northern dialect"
  • "General American has been used to designate a regional type of American English, a type of American English which transcends all American regional boundaries, a variously constituted body of speech features of American English found in the speech of the great majority of Americans, and a set of American dialects which, perhaps by definition, share certain features under discussion"

  —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:46, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

  Just from a quick search, I see several more sources using "General American" (with a capital G) for a dialect of American English: Bailey (2017), Clopper & Bradlow (2009), Burkett (1978), Herman & Herman (1997), Kövecses (2000), Treiman et al. (1997) and Troutman (2001). Any concerns about giving readers the impression of a dialect therefore seem moot, since that's just what these and other sources call it. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:09, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

References