Re: English |a|

On Saturday 15 January 2005 09:54 am, Tristan McLeay wrote:
> On 16 Jan 2005, at 1.29 am, Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
> > I have some questions about English "a" sounds.  I don't want to start
> > YAEPT, but I am interested in synchronic as well as diachronic
> > differences.
> >
> > First, how did the word |father| (/faDr=/ modulo dialectical
> > differences; here I'm using /a/ to represent the bottom of the vowel
> > chart,
> > ignoring differences between [a], [A], [6], etc.) avoid being
> > Great Vowel Shifted into something like /fejDr=/?
>
> I believe it was actually [faD@r] (which you'd spell as /f&Dr=/) during
> the time of the GVS, so there was no long vowel to shift. My guess has
> been that it lengthened at the same time as 'rather' did the same, and
> somehow managed to infiltrate American English too---but I don't know
> for certain.
>
"Father" and "rather" do not have similar sounds in many American dialects.
Rather is closer to the vowel in "back".


> --
> Tristan.
>
--
Elyse Grasso

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Cherani Tradespeech
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