Re: THEORY: Vowel shift (was: THEORY: Storage Vs. Computation)

Raymond A. Brown wrote:
>
> At 10:31 am -0700 17/6/99, Charles wrote:
> >John Cowan wrote:
> >>
> >> Andrew Smith wrote:
> >>
> >> > Is this different to the vowel shift that is effecting the Southern
> >> > England dialect group?
> >>
> >> I believe so, but I don't have enough specifics to be sure.
> >
> >I hope not:
> >http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/ICSLP4.html
>
> and I know not  :)
>
> I was born & brought up in Southern England, now live there again, and have
> had family (siblings, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins) who've lived there
> all their lives.  What is this vowel shift we're supposed to be
> experiencing in this neck of the woods?
>
> Ray.
Well I don't know about Southern England, but a shift has been going on
in
parts of California, which is my old neck of the woods, and that is the
unrounding of certain vowels.  Instead of saying could, would, should as
/kUId/ /wUId/ /SUId/ we've been hearing something half way towards /I/:
/k?d/ /w?d/ /S?d/.  There's no rounding of the lips at all.  It's a
little
like trying to pronounce "could" while you're smiling and pushing your
tongue forward.  Which is the endless joke about California and Valley
girl accents and all.

It strikes me that Southern England is not homogenous, any more than
California is, and perhaps Andrew and John are reporting something
that's
happening in a pocket of England.  I'm curious too.

Sally

Diane's remark about the Irish/Scottish tendency to pronounce /aU/ as
something
resembling /aI/ I've often noted, but I've noted as well a tendency
among
some English to broaden the /a/ to to /E/ in parts of Southern England
(I
don't know if this is a native or an imported tendency) when pronouncing
the diphthong /oU/.  So "brown" is "breh-ohn" (sometimes verging on
"bray-ihn).
I've asked three people who pronounced it this way where they were from
and they all mentioned areas south of London.  Perhaps they were from
elsewhere.

We have a radio-announcer here in Rochester who has the strangest
accent.
He comes on 101.5, the jazz station; we call the lake shore for Lake
Ontario
"the North Coast," and that's also the name of the station, and he
pronounces
it "Kay-ohst."  He also has some southern features in his pronunciation:
"Won-oh-Won Pont FAHV, heer on the Nohth Kay-ohst."  I want to venture
to
say that he's Texas, or just affected... but I've never heard this
KAY-ohst
for "coast" before.  Anybody else ever heard this?

Sally again