Re: Pronunciation of "why" in the US

Aaron J. Dinkin wrote:
On 5 May 2006 10:29:53 -0700, jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx <jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Aaron J. Dinkin wrote:
...

Aaron! Good to see you posting here even if it's to contradict me.
How's gradual school?

Keepin' me busy, as you can probably guess from my two-year absence. I have
returned for the nonce mainly to distract myself from my upcoming Very Scary
Exams.

Good luck!

jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On the other hand, Pittsburgh has a lot in common with Philadelphia,
especially in accents.

I don't believe that's correct, though I am not especially knowledgeable.

They're structurally completely different: Philly has the split between
the two short-a classes (similar to but not the same as the split in New
York) and distinguishes "cot" and "caught" by raising "caught" all the
way to the low side of [o@]; Pittsburgh totally merges "cot" and "caught"
and has a nasal short-a system.

I have a very raised Uncle Bob from Pittsburgh, and I haven't noticed
any nasality (well, he does have a nose), but--though I hate to admit
it in Sal's presence--a Clevelander may not be the best judge of that.

What I meant by "nasal short-a system" is that what /&/ sounds like depends
entirely on whether there's a nasal consonant following it - where there's a
nasal, as in "planet" and "lamb", the /&/ becomes a nearly high diphthong like
[e@]; without a nasal, it remains low like [&], and it rarely takes on values
in between those two. The same system is prevalent in New England and parts of
New Jersey.

Ah, okay.

In other words, I think the Pittsburgh merged caught/cot might be a lot
like the Philly "caught" and semi-rhotic "order".

Not really. From glancing at Labov's atlas, it seems to that Philly "caught"
is an honest mid vowel, maybe on the north side of [O] with some
diphthongization (third highest "caught" vowel in the country), while the
Pittsburgh merger class is a lot lower than that, probably on the border
between [O] and [A.].

Well, it is possible that I was completely wrong. Which way is north,
by the way--high?

While you're here, do you know an IPA symbol for the "general American
aw" as in the M-W sound file of "caught"?

That sounds really low and not very rounded to me - like, on the border
between [A] and [A.].

Aha! [Ah''A]. Much as I thought. Caught is almost cot, for some of
us.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh (uniquely among North American cities) tends to
monophthongize /au/ to [a:],

I haven't noticed that.

Oh, they make a big deal of it, I think. Like in Boston you can by t-shirts
saying "Hahvahd Yahd", in Pittsburgh you can buy t-shirts saying "Dahntahn".
....

Hm. Maybe it didn't affect my cousins.

--
Jerry Friedman

.

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