When ‘Price’ and ‘Prize’ Don’t Rhyme

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Ben

English dipthongs

In recent years, I’ve noticed a growing phenomenon among American English speakers. People with otherwise “standard” accents exhibit a “non-standard” pronunciation of words like price, right, and kite. To use right as an example, this results in pronunciations which sound to listeners like “rate,” “royt,” or “ruh-eet.”  To put that into impressionistic terms, the diphthong seems to become “tighter.”

This quirk is due to what might be termed the price-prize split.  In many accents, there is a difference between the ay sound in “price,” “right,” and “kite,” and the /ay/ sound in “prize,” “ride,” and “flies.” Before a voiceless consonant, the /ay/ vowel is shorter in duration and sometimes different in quality (e.g. Canadian prize–IPA praɪz–contrasts with Canadian price–IPA prʌɪs).*

(I realize that, contrary to the title of this post, this isn’t a matter of “rhyme.”  But I dunno … “Price and Prize Aren’t Assonant” doesn’t pack the same punch. )

The price-prize split is most commonly referenced as a feature of Canadian Accents, part of the phenomenon of Canadian raising. But it’s heard in many other accents as well:

—In Scottish English, prize = IPA praez while price = IPA prʌis 

–In some Newcastle (Geordie) accents, prize = IPA praɪz while price = IPA prɛɪs (See citation 1)

–In some contemporary Dublin accents, prize = IPA prɑɪz while price = IPA præɪs (see citation 2)

I’ve noted similar, less-discussed distinctions. For example, It’s apparent to me that some New Yorkers pronounce “right” and “ride” differently: where the former is similar to other American accents, the latter diphththong has a back onglide (i.e. IPA rɑɪd, making it sound like “royd” to outsiders).

In fact, it seems that various types of price-prize distinctions have become very widespread in the US.  Perhaps the most well-observed of these splits is found in parts of the American South, where price is pronounced as it is in General American English, while prize is “prahz” (IPA pra:z).

But I’ve heard similar splits in parts of New Jersey, various areas of the Northern US, California and the West. Indeed, I myself make a slight distinction between the two words (probably along the lines of IPA praɪz vs. prɐɪz, for you phonetics hounds out there).

A related observation is that most English speakers pronounce “price” with a much “faster” diphthong that the diphthong in “prize.” If you’re a native English speaker, give it a whirl: say the word “right” then the word “ride.”  You’ll notice the latter has a longer, more drawn out quality than the former. It’s logical that, when pronouncing a diphthong more rapidly, the actual distance between the two vowels might shorten, yielding a different pronunciation.**

What I wonder, though, is why some accents make such a large distinction between the two, whereas other don’t. For example, why do areas in the mid-Atlantic (i.e. Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc.) exhibit such a large divide between prize and price (often ɑɪ vs. əɪ), while New Yorkers only make a slight distinction (perhaps ɑɪ vs. aɪ)?

Any other PRICE-PRIZE splits worth mentioning?

*Phonetics novices may notice I’m using a lot of the International Phonetic Alphabet in this post.  I normally try to use accompanying “laymen’s transcriptions,” but since I’m discussing minute distinctions here, I found it difficult.  You may want to consult my IPA cheat sheet.  Or, if you have more time, the International Phonetic Alphabet tutorial I created some months back.

**Articulatory phoneticians would have a lot more to say about this.  I’m speaking very generally.

Citation 1:  Watt, Dominic & Lesley Milroy. 1999. Patterns of variation and change in three Newcastle vowels: Is this dialect levelling? In Foulkes & Docherty (eds.), 25–46.

Citation 2: Hickey, Raymond. 2000. Dissociation as a form of language change. In European Journal of English Studies (4:3), 2000, 303-15.

Share

Posted in English Phonetics | Tagged , , , | 20 Comments

Just What is General American English?

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Ben
Map of the midwest

The American Midwest

I’ve spent the last week on vacation with my girlfriend’s extended family. Most of them are from various parts of Pennsylvania, a state noted for its relative diversity of accents. Indeed, this was my experience throughout the week: I heard accents ranging from slightly Canadian-sounding (Northern/Central PA) to slightly Southern sounding (South/Western PA.)

And yet, as I suggested with my recent post about the Philadelphia accent, Pennsylvania is not much renowned for its accents. I believe this is because most accents in the Keystone state are only a few degrees removed from General American English (aka GenAm), the term used to describe American accents that aren’t overly Northern, Southern or Eastern. As such, PA accents haven’t gained the notoriety of more pronouncedly regional varieties of English.

But what accents, then, can be thought of as variants of GenAm? And at what point does an accent become “regional?”

Here’s the Wikipedia blurb about General American English, which sums up the commonly understood definition succinctly:

General American (GA), also known as Standard American English (SAE), is a major accent of American English. The accent is not restricted to the United States. Within American English, General American and accents approximating it are contrasted with Southern American English, several Northeastern accents, and other distinct regional accents and social group accents like African American Vernacular English.

So General American English is exclusive by definition. Nevertheless, it is often described as “typical,” “neutral,” or some other slightly biased adjective. After reading numerous definitions of GenAm, however, I’d say the term describes a spectrum of accents rather than a single monolithic standard.

In the narrowest sense, the General American “heartland” is found in a tiny chunk of the midwest.  This map, created by an astute Wikimedia Commons contributor (extrapolated from the work of renowned linguist William Labov), indicates where “classic GenAm” can be found. In this area, the accent is alleged to most closely resemble the standard phonetic description of General American:

Map of General American English

Indeed, famed investor Warren Buffet, who has spent nearly all his life in Omaha, exhibits about as middle-of-the-road a General American accent as you can find in this interview:

Broadly speaking, however, the spectrum of GenAm probably includes areas with more marked accents such as the American Midland (Southern Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, etc.); and the Inland North (Michigan, Wisconsin, etc.) To my ears, these accents don’t sound particularly “standard” or “neutral” (adjectives I don’t feel describe any accent), but I’d say they at least lie at extreme ends of the General American continuum.

But this definition covers a lot of ground. I therefore identify GenAm not by the presence or absence of regional features, but by the sheer number of these features present. Almost anyone, except those born in the stretch of the Midwest mentioned above, would be expected to exhibit some kind of regionalism (however slight). It’s the volume of these features that marks the difference, for me, between GenAm and “non-GenAm.”

For example, I’ve heard people from the Southern half of Pennsylvania who mostly speak General American English, but with the marked regionalism of fronting the “long o” in words like “goat” or “go” (i.e. IPA ɜʊ or “eh-oh”).  I’d still consider their speech “General American,” however, because I allow for an amount of “acceptable” variation within the GenAm category.

And yet there is clear bias in how we perceive some accents as General American and others as “regional.”  Certain features (for example, glide deletion in American Southern accents) are alone enough to exclude an accent from the GenAm clubhouse, while dozens of marked Northern accent features are accepted as minor deviations.

As you may gather, General American is a concept for which I’ve struggled to find a satisfying definition. British Received Pronunciation has “Near RP,” a type of accent which is fairly close to RP but with some regionalisms or other “idiosyncracies.” Is it maybe time for there to be a “Near GenAm?”

PS: My apologies for posting this a bit late. Travel back home took longer than expected. Reading through your many comments now!

Share

Posted in American English | Tagged , | 33 Comments

Jill Abramson’s Accent

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Ben

I’m coming home from vacation Saturday and will hopefully have proper post up by Sunday.  In the meantime, I’d like to address something that has been swirling around the press:  the strange idiolect of new NY Times Executive editor Jill Abramson.  Take a listen:

Speech pathologists and phoneticians, knock yourself out: what’s going on with Abramson’s speech?

Share

Posted in Miscellaneous Accents and Dialects | Tagged , | 28 Comments

Why is Fantasy Always in a British Accent?

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Ben
Sword of Gandalf

Wikimedia

[Ed. Note:  I’m on vacation till Saturday, July 30th, so I’m publishing some old posts I drafted but never published.  Some of these might be rough around the edges.  Also note that it may be difficult for me to respond to comments.  But feel to discuss!]

A brief detour into pop culture.

I haven’t seen the recent HBO miniseries Game of Thrones, although I read the first book in the series on which it’s based.  I have been told, however, that the television adaptation continues the tradition whereby all characters within a fantasy milieu must speak with British accents.  This disappoints me slightly.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the book, but I admired the fact that it had a more contemporary (and maybe even American?) sensibility.   The series has a mostly British cast, but why need we create yet another British fantasy world in the first place?  It’s completely subjective of course, but something in the novel read very American to me.  Other experiences may differ.

Don’t get me wrong:  I know there are some aesthetic reasons for not using American accents in fantasy.  We never had castles in North America (outside of architectural curios built by wealthy 19th-Century magnates).  Nor have we had armored knights, kings, lusty tavern wenches, or any of the other staples of fantasy literature.  I can see why it would be jarring to hear American accents within such a medieval milieu.

But at the same time, nobody spoke anything approaching modern British accents in medieval times either.  Or, for that matter, anything like modern English, period.  So why the Britishness?

Tolkien might have something to do with it.  He rooted much of his world on the mythology, languages and history of the British Isles (indeed, borrowing from Welsh to construct several of his languages).  Middle Earth resembles a pastiche of imagery close to the heart of British identity, and we’ve perhaps never let go of fantasy’s association with that corner of the world.

Interestingly, when fantasy breaks out of the sword and sorcery mold, the unspoken rule that fantasy must sound British seems to relax a bit.  The New Zealand-filmed Xena and Hercules shows from the 1990s had actors speak American accents, despite a fairly low percentage of actual American actors in the cast.  But the tradition has never quite died out in other works.  (And I’m not even mentioning the related use of British accents in movies set in ancient Rome).

Must fantasy be spoken with a British accent?

Share

Posted in British English | Tagged , | 39 Comments

Animal Accents

Posted on July 24, 2011 by Ben
Baluga Whales

Wikimedia

[Ed. Note:  I’m on vacation till Saturday, July 30, so I’m publishing some old posts I drafted but never published.  Some of these might be rough around the edges.  Also note that it may be difficult for me to respond to comments.  But feel to discuss!]

Are there “animal accents?”

There has been a news article circulating rececently about “whale accents.” Apparently, while whales exhibit the same types of communication, they do so in very different ways. Here’s a more technical take from an article on the subject:

“It’s not that the individuals in a group are making different codas, they don’t have different names, they just say the same things in different ways,” said study researcher Shane Gero, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. “We believe they can pick between each other, that they can tell each other apart by this call.”

I tried to form a coherent opinion about this, but the fact is, I just don’t know enough about whales to add anything meaningful. Actually, let me rephrase that:  I don’t know enough about animals in general to comment.  So I’d like to open up this discussion.

I suppose animals could be said to have “accents” of a sort. Just as humans have individual ways of speaking, so dogs have individual barks. Whether or not Rover and Fluffy have different “accents” is a matter of semantics. But the same basic principle applies.

Of course, when people discuss “accents” they are usually referring to accents typical of a larger group–a region, socioeconomic level or ethnicity. And this is where the comparison to animals gets trickier.  A St. Bernard and a Chihuahua obviously have different barks. But there are obvious genetic differences that account for this. These are not comparable to the differences between a London accent and one from Tennessee.  They’re more akin to the difference between an alto and a soprano singer.

The problem here is that in order to identify actual regional or “sociological” differences in the way animals “pronounce” their “languages”, you’d have to prove that those differences are not merely genetic. And in the animal world, that’s a pretty tall order.  Debates over what is innate vs. deliberate in the animal kingdom continue to rage.  (See discussions of apes’ use of sign language for one such spat).

On the other hand, you might be able to identify animal “dialects.”  Although I again cite my lack of zoological knowledge, I’d suspect wolf packs, flocks of birds, and schools of dolphins use sounds unique to that pack, flock or school.    Whether this can be equated to differences in human language, I can’t quite say.

Share

Posted in Miscellaneous Accents and Dialects | Tagged | 6 Comments

Why Vowel Shifts?

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Ben

[Ed. Note:  I’m on vacation till Saturday, July 30th, so I’m publishing some old posts that I drafted but never published for various reasons.  Some of these might be a little rough around the edges.  Also note that it may be difficult for me to respond to comments.  But feel to discuss!]

I frequently use the term “vowel shift” on this site. I’d like to take a moment to explain what a vowel shift is, and more importantly, why there are so many of them in the English language.

If you’re just joining us, a vowel shift happens when the vowel sounds of a particular accent (or language) move from one part of the vowel space to another. It’s best to look at an example: In Chicago and other Great Lakes cities, the vowel in pot moves toward the vowel in pat. The pat vowel, in turn, moves toward the vowel in pet. Hence these vowels “shift” from one position to another.

English has many such vowel shifts. The language you’re currently reading (Modern English) wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for a shift that occured hundreds of years ago (The Great Vowel Shift). In recent centuries, we’ve seen the London Vowel Shift, the Australian/New Zealand Vowel Shift, the Northern Cities (Great Lakes) Vowel Shift, the American Southern shift, the Canadian shift, and the California shift.

So why all the shifts? What is it about English that creates this game of linguistic musical chairs?

Let’s start off by stating the obvious: English has a lot of vowels. A lot of vowels. This partially explains why English vowels might shift radically in a generation, while Spanish vowels have barely budged for hundreds of years.

To use a silly metaphor, imagine that Spanish is a train car with only five riders, while English is a car packed with thirteen people. The five people in the “Spanish” car are likely to remain put for the entire journey (there’s so much room!) The thirteen people in the “English” car, however, tend to jostle around, move to less crowded parts of the train, make room for people as the enter, etc. Simply put, they’re more likely to shift.

But how do particular vowel shifts begin in the first place? What gets the ball rolling?

There are two ways a vowel shift can be described. The first is as a “pull chain.” Extending the above metaphor, imagine that a passenger on our crowded car train notices an open space a few feet down, so he moves. A second rider moves into the empty space that the first passenger left behind, then another person moves into passenger #3’s space. And so on and so forth.

Turning again to the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, this would mean that the vowel in “pet” moves first. Next the vowel in “pat” shifts into the empty space left behind by “pet,” then “pot” moves to the empty space left by “pat.”

A “push chain,” on the other hand, means the opposite: turning again to our “train,” this means an obnoxious train rider pushes another rider out of the way, that rider stumbles and pushes a third person out of the way as well. In real terms, this means that “pot” moves toward the vowel in “pat,” pushing it toward the vowel in “pet.”

But what precipitates these shifts? That’s a far greyer area. For some vowel shifts, we don’t even know whether they’re a “push chain” or a “pull chain” to begin with, much less the cultural factors that caused them. I’ve heard any number of explanations for why vowel shifts happen. The Northern Cities Vowel Shift is often attributed to 19th-century immigrant groups; the Canadian vowel shift sometimes blamed on Scottish influence. Theories abound.

I don’t have many hypotheses myself. Such processes often occur for reasons too complex to be pinned down. But it’s fun to speculate. Heard any theories for how vowel shifts start?

Share

Posted in English Phonetics | Tagged , | 16 Comments

Posts while I’m on Vacation

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Ben

I am on vacation this next week in an area with little internet access. As I won’t have much opportunity to write, I’m going to publish some old posts that I drafted but didn’t put on the blog for various reasons. Some of these articles I found a bit too fluffy, others just didn’t quite “gel” for me. Many of them had interesting topics, however, so I figured I’d post some of these over the next week to strike up conversation.

I unfortunately won’t be able to comment much until the end of next week.  But feel free to talk among yourselves!

Share

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Children’s Accents

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Ben
Toddler running

Photo: Jamie Campbell

Children’s accents tell us quite a bit about adult accents. From the speech of children, we can deduce which sounds of English are easily acquired and which less so.  And in some situations, we can find explanations for why accents lose certain features while preserving others.

I pondered all this while reading an article from Edinburgh’s Queen Margaret University titled Acquisition of Scottish English Phonology: an overview.* The paper cites a study of young Scottish children’s speech, noting a distinct pattern for the ages by which kids master English consonants:**

–The consonants in pat, bat, mat, tip, dot, not, and well are fully mastered between ages 3 and 3 1/2.

–The consonants in king, got, fop, ring, vat, and heat are fully mastered between ages 3 1/2 and 4.

–The consonant in lot is fully mastered between 4 1/2 and 5.

–The consonants in sing, zap, shop, and leisure  are fully mastered between 5 1/2 and 6.

–The consonants in choose, juice and ring are mastered after age 6.

These results aren’t entirely surprising. Young children’s trouble with /r/ and /l/ is oft-observed (hence pronunciations like “wabbit” and “twubbow” for rabbit and trouble). I was unaware the “ch” in chocolate and the “j” in juice posed so much trouble for youngsters, but it makes a lot of sense when you consider the complexity of those affricates.

But (paradoxically?), even the youngest of Scottish children seem capable of learning nuances of the Scottish English vowel system. A feature of Scottish accents that I assumed to be fairly complex–the Scottish Vowel Lengthening rule–is mastered from a very early age (before 3 1/2). So while it can take a while for children to conquer some of English’s most salient features (/r/ and /l/ for example), they nevertheless pick up some of their accent’s subtlest distinctions shortly after the onset of speech.

This got me thinking from a dialect coach’s perspective.  It would be an interesting challenge to construct an age-specific accent for an adult actor playing a young child (a not uncommon situation). As the article suggests, this would require exceptional specificity. A three-year-old speaker has a very different accent compared to a five-year-old!

*Citation:  Scobbie, James M, Gordeeva, Olga B, Matthews, Benjamin (2006)
Acquisition of Scottish English phonology: an overview. QMU Speech
Science Research Centre Working Papers, WP-7.

**For clarity, I use the term “fully mastered.”  This isn’t exactly what the paper suggests, however.  It actually describes the ages at which 90% or more of the subject group exhibit complete mastery.  I’ve also (again for clarity) rounded up numbers such as 4 years, 11 months.

Share

Posted in English Phonetics | Tagged , , | 20 Comments

The Cloth Set

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Ben

open-mid back rounded vowel symbolI remember the first time I learned about the cloth set. It was a boiling summer day in an un-air-conditioned New York workplace. Feeling the heat, I exclaimed to a co-worker, “Man, this is a hot office!”

At that moment, I realized the vowel I used for “hot” was not the same vowel I used for “office.” This is due to what linguist JC Wells terms the cloth set, a set of “short o” vowel sounds that is mostly found in American English accents.

The cloth set describes words that might be expected to have the “short o” in words like “cot” or “pot,” but which are pronounced instead with the vowel in words like “thought” or “flaw.” So while lot is “laht” (IPA lɑt) in General American English, off and cloth become “awf” and “clawth” (IPA ɔf and klɔθ).

The cloth set is primarily thought of as an American feature, but was once more common in British English. In old-fasioned Received Pronunciation (“U-RP”), for example, off sounded like “orf” (IPA ɔ:f). As with many American accents, U-RP used the “thought” vowel for “short o’s” before voiceless fricatives (i.e. -s, -th, -f).

But the American cloth set is more of a multi-headed beast. My own cloth set features words that end in -g (dog), -ng (long), and two lexical exceptions: the word on (most other -on words are in the LOT set); and the word chocolate.

We generally know how and when the cloth set came about. Beginning in the 1600’s, the o in lot became a long vowel before voiceless fricatives in various English accents. What’s less clear (to me) is how this extended to words like dog, long and chocolate in American English.

It’s reasonable to think that coarticulatory effects* influence some of these pronunciations.  For those of you scratching your heads, let me explain.  Vowels and consonants are often affected by the other vowels and consonants that surround them.  For example, the co-articulatory effect of being sandwiched between two “s” sounds means that most people probably don’t pronounce the t in “Lower East Side.”

In terms of the cloth set,  the fact that the “o” in words like “dog” and “long” precedes a velar consonant (i.e. a consonant pronounced with the rear roof of the mouth) might explain the effect of “o” being retracted and raised to an “aw” sound. For on, the fact that that -n is a nasal consonant, which again entails a degree of velarization, may have a similar effect.  Just one possible explanation: I haven’t the foggiest clue if that has anything to do with it.

The problem here is that Americans aren’t consistent in this regard. Why is on part of the cloth set, but not “upon?” Why is “log” a “cloth” word, but not “cog.”** Why “chocolate” but not “lock?”

Thoughts?

*Note to linguists:  I’m using “coarticulation” a bit loosely here.

**In my own personal variant of the cloth set.

Share

Posted in American English | Tagged , , | 60 Comments

The Overlooked Philadelphia Accent

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Ben
The Liberty Bell

Liberty Bell, Philadelphia (Wikimedia)

I should really know more about the Philadelphia Accent than I do. I have several friends who live in Philadelphia, my lovely girlfriend was born in the city (and raised nearby), and I’ve lived most of my life in the Northeastern United States. But it wasn’t until very recently that I could so much as identify a Philadelphia accent.

So what does English sound like in the city of Brotherly Love? Reports vary. It’s been described (only semi-accurately) as “the New York accent, only milder.” More on-point, it’s part of a small dialect area called the Mid-Atlantic, which stretches from Southern New Jersey to Coastal Maryland.

Given the city’s geographical location, the actual features of the Philadelphia accent seem to borrow from both North and South:

*Like New York City Accents, Philadelphia English features a raised pronunciation of words like thought and coffee (“kaw-fee” or IPA kɔəfi). Also like Big Apple natives, Philadelphians have a complex system called the tense-lax split, whereby the /a/ in certain “short-a” words–such as bad, path, pan, and ask–is pronounced  more “tensely” (impressionistically speaking, this means that “bad” may sound a bit like “bed.”).

*But like some American Southern accents,  the vowels in GOOSE and GOAT are fronted (pronounced closer to the center of the vowel space — i.e. IPA gʉs and gɜʊt).

But there are other aspects of Philly speech that are quite unique. For example, the /ey/ sound in the words face and the /ey/ in the word day are not pronounced alike. When this diphthong occurs in closed syllables (i.e. before a consonant, as in “face”), this sound becomes an “eh” (i.e. IPA fe:s). When the sound occurs before an open consonant (as in “day”), it is slightly closer to the sound in “die” (i.e. IPA dæɪ).

Examples of true-blue Philadelphia accents are few and far between. Probably the most famous person with a marked accent would be television commentator Chris Matthews:

I’d also point to these two excellent samples on the International Dialect of English Achive: this middle-aged speaker and this younger speaker.

Listening to both Mr. Matthews and the two IDEA samples, it strikes me that the features of the Philadelphia accent are quite variable within individual speakers. (Note, for instance, that Mr. Matthews’ “oo” sound–as in “goose”–varies in terms of frontness).  While I’ve heard New Yorkers who seem to have every posssible New Yorkism in the book, I’ve never met a Philadelphian with every feature of the Philadelphia accent.

Like New York, though, there are apparent sub-dialects in Philadelphia. For example, I’ve heard rumor of a “South Philly” variant which differs from other Philadelphia accents in that it is non-rhotic (i.e. the ‘r’ is dropped at the end of words like butter or car).

Alas, I couldn’t find a clip of anyone identified as being from South Philadelphia, so I went with an interview with local celebrity/cheesesteak entrepreneur Joey Vento, of South Philly’s Geno’s Steaks fame. (Disclaimer: Vento is an extremely controversial figure in Philadelphia, as will become apparent from this clip. He does not represent the fine city of Philadelphia, nor the political views and/or dietary habits of its populace):

I had a hard time tracking down a bio of Mr. Vento, although one site I visisted suggested he’s from West Philly, not South. Nevertheless, as an Italian-American he is of the demographic that apparently maintains the “South Philly” ethnolect. Indeed, I noticed two non-rhotic pronunciations: his repetition of “dollars” at 0:51 (“dolluhs”) and his pronunciation of “opportunities” at 3:03 (“oppahtunities”).

I’m not sure, though, why such non-rhoticisms may (or may not) linger in the speech of Italian-Philadelphians. Perhaps there was a stopover in New York City before this group settled in Philly?

Share

Posted in American English | Tagged , , | 52 Comments