Re: English |a|

On Tue, Jan 18, 2005 at 09:56:18AM -0500, Elyse M. Grasso wrote:
> 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".
I think that would be why Tristan said "and somehow managed to
infiltrate American English too", with an understood "(even though
that pronunciation of 'rather' did not)". :)

-Marcos