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August 19

Cot–caught–cou(r)t distinction

It is said that most Americans, especially in the West, have the cot–caught merger, but I do distinguish them, although subtly. And I certainly pronounce the man's name Don differently from the woman's name Dawn, and find it confusing when others pronounce them the same.

But the classical distinction apparently pronounces "caught" with the [ɔː] vowel, which I understand to be the same as in the word "court", except without the r-coloring. Our article on the merger says that it's a merger between [ɒ] and [ɔ].

I certainly don't say it that way. In fact as far as I'm aware I never use the [ɔ] vowel without r-coloring. (And yes, I'm aware that means there's no minimal pair, but I think it's still possible to talk about the difference.)

So I'm wondering if there's a separate cot–caught or Don–Dawn distinction that's more a distinction between [ɑ] and [ɒ]? I don't make any large distinction between the vowels in "father" and "bother", which for RP speakers is supposed to give the difference between those phonemes, but maybe American phonology should just be treated differently? --Trovatore (talk) 06:53, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Trovatore: This looks quite like the vocalism described in Inland Northern American English#Lowering of /ɔ/. –Austronesier (talk) 07:34, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The symbols are a bit misleading. For those with the now-rare horse–hoarse distinction, the quality of the NORTH vowel is close to that of THOUGHT, but for the rest of North Americans the quality of NORTH/FORCE is close to cardinal [o], or somewhere between [o] and [ɔ]. The use of ⟨ɔ⟩ for NORTH/FORCE is now primarily traditional, especially for those with the cot–caught merger because they don't have the /ɔ/ phoneme. In addition, the quality of LOT can be somewhat lower than the cardinal [ɔ], as shown in the diagram at General American#Vowels. Nardog (talk) 08:16, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to both! @Austronesier: I sort of doubt that's it. I know how Michiganders say "not" and I don't say it like that. I've never lived in the Great Lakes area (except for a year in Toronto, which I don't think really counts); my grandma was from Pennsylvania but I don't think she had a large influence on my speech.

@Nardog: that sounds a bit closer. On the other hand, I think some New Yorkers do pronounce "caught" with something closer to the "north" vowel, maybe with a glide after it?

Finally, I need to figure out what these senses of "raised" and "lowered" and "fronted" mean — they don't seem to correlate much with how I feel the vowels in my mouth. --Trovatore (talk) 17:31, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yeah, I wasn't thinking much about non-rhotic accents like the New York accent. In them NORTH/FORCE and THOUGHT are the same (in Boston, so is LOT).

Vowel height and backness generally correspond to the first and second formants, respectively. The quadrilateral seen in the IPA chart is a sort of compromise between theoretical tongue positions (which were once thought to correspond to height and backness) and formants (here is an excellent introduction) but nonetheless continues to be used, so I find it most convenient to think of height and backness as mere classificatory notions rather than something that has concrete physical correlates. Nardog (talk) 17:50, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was briefly puzzled while watching some Agatha Christie story on the telly. Someone said, "My lahst shoe!" What do you mean, your last shoe?? Oh, you're trying to say lost in American. Sorry, [English actor], you're not quite there. —Tamfang (talk) 00:21, 24 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]