--- "T. A. McLeay" <conlang@...> wrote:
> Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
> > Right. Not all Americans have the LOT/THOUGHT merger, not even those who
> > have the PALM/LOT merger. This is why there are so dadgum many lexical
> sets
> > in Wells's list; i'm almost certain that no single dialect distinguishes
> all
> > of them.
>
> There's Americans without the PALM/LOT merger?
I'm a native born American and I can't recall ever hearing anybody merge
PALM/LOT. Both PALM/LOT and LOT/THOUGHT mergers would just sound weird to my
Amuriken ears. PALM/THOUGHT on the other hand share the same vowel sound.
--gary