Re: SoCal vowels (was Re: sending mail to the list)

Matt Pearson wrote:

>This is an interesting hypothesis.  So do you have the same contrast
between
>"could" (more rounded) and "good" (less rounded)?  We should test this
>systematically:
>If Steg's guess is right, then the vowels in column A should all sound the
>same, and the vowels in column B should all sound the same, and the vowels
in
>column A should sound different from the vowels in column B...
>
>  A        B
>  put      book
>  took     look
>  could    good
>  soot     rook
>  foot     crook
>  should
>  shook
>  cook
>  hook

More strangeness out of SoCal.  First they merged "cot" and "caught", now
they're splitting /U/?  :-(

These are all definitely [U] in my dialect. I would have very short barred-i
[ki-d] for "could" in casual speech,  _unstressed_ position, but not
otherwise.   I have heard:  Appalachian [puS] for "push"; quite often
Southern/Okla/Tex. [gi-d] (barred i) for "good".

I would have suspected the final C (esp. alveolars) to be a determining
factor, but apparently not.  Maybe it is the tenseness/laxness of the
initial-- unless this is just the phonetician's  version of Medical
Student's Syndrome

Anyone remember John Candy as the redneck movie-reviewer on old SCTV (he
only reviewed movies with lots of explosions):  "Ooh, that blowed up real
[gi-d]!"

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