USAGE: 'Canadian' raising [was Re: Evidence for Nostratic?]

Quoting Estel Telcontar <estel_telcontar@...>:

>  --- Steven Williams wrote:
> > You see this very thing in making fun of the
> > Canadians, who are stereotyped as saying [@."bu-t]
> > (or, if you're going to extremes, [@."byt]) for
> > /about/, when they really say something like
> > [@."bOUt]. Standard USAian is [@.'baUt], by the way.
>
> Actually, what we really say is more like [@."bVUt]  [VU]  appears
> before voiceless consonants, while [aU] appears before voiced
> consonants.   Part of a phenomenon known as Canadian raising.
.. which is somewhat unfair, since a number of dialects of
English have this raising, notably in Tidewater Virginia, there
traditionally an acrolectal variety. Indeed, the Canadian
phenomenon is probably derivative of the Virginian one, since
thousands of Royalists fled north after the Revolutionary war.

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Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
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