Re: Fronted back vowels.

Barry Garcia wrote:

>> This is why I always make conlangs with simple vowel phonolgies, I'm not
good at hearing the differences :).>>

Hear hear!!

>> If you listen to the NPR interview here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1693373
You should hear examples of the vowels I'm talking about. >>

OK, I listened, and she's definitely talking about _diphthongization_ that
happens to involve fronting and apparently unrounding of the nuclear vowel--

"move" std. [mu:v], ValleyGirl [mI_Uv] (might be [mY_Uv]??)

"goes" std. [go_Uz] VG [gE_Uz] or even [g&_Uz] (I don't detect any rounding
of the nucleus here, as I could in "move"-- but OTOH one might expect some
_slight_ rounding in anticipation of the off-glide).

This indeed is new, as is her cite of "that" lowered to something like
[DAt]. Good grief, is it the beginning of another Great Vowel Shift? I
wonder-- does this diphthongization only happen with stressed vowels? I
think another name for that phenomenon is "breaking", and seems to result
from drawing out ("drawling") the stressed vowel.

I don't hang around with a lot of teen girls, but even here in Mich. I
occasionally overhear what sounds like this VG accent. Of course, as we all
know, Calif. is the source of a lot of innovations of all sorts.......:-))))
My 19-year old grand-niece (Florida born and bred) also uses it; she is
probably an "alpha-female", or at least thinks she is :-)))).

One feature mentioned (lowering of /E/~raising of /&/ merging to a vowel
midway between the two-- hmm, maybe that's the vowel in her VG "goes") was
noted in NYC speech as long ago as the 60s (though not in the socially
dominant/approved dialect).