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Re: USAGE: The Great Vowel Shift

From:Joe <joe@...>
Date:Monday, April 7, 2003, 15:34
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2003 11:38 PM
Subject: USAGE: The Great Vowel Shift


> Here are four versions of the same dialogue, illustrating the progress of
the
> English GVS. In each case, the male speaker is the more conservative, and > the female speaker is more advanced. > > http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/sound/me.wav > http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/sound/1450.wav > http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/sound/1550.wav > http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/sound/1650.wav > > And here's a recap of the 8 steps: > > 1. i and u move down to @I and @U. > 2. e and o move up to i and u. > 3. a moves forward to &. > 4. E and O move up and out to e and o. > 5. & moves up to E. > 6. e (both inherited and from step 4) moves up to i. > 7. E (both inherited and from step 5) moves up to e. > 8. @I and @U move down and break to aI and aU. > > To which we can add: > > 9. e and o break to eI and oU. > 10. (RP) oU moves down and in to VU. > > Steps 1-7 constitute a classical pull-chain shift. >
That's /@u/, at least in my version of RP. /VU/ sounds odd.