Why There’s So Much Repetition in our textbook American Voices Wave Theory

Review: Why are there so many languages and dialects in the world?

People move Languages (and dialects) change

These assumptions make some predictions Each language and dialect change occurs in an area defined by the boundaries of communication. Each change can be defined by a line called an “isogloss”. An isogloss may be a closed circle or a line that stops at a river or mountain boundary.

“Pardon my redundancy.” –W. C. Fields In this Power Point Presentation, we will consider three specific changes in relation to two major vowel shifts, all described in our textbook American Voices. The three specific changes are r-dropping, Don/Dawn merger, and Ann/Ian merger; the two vowel shifts are the Northern Cities Shift and the Southern Shift. By treating these changes as Wave Theory phenomena, we will be able to make sense of the fact that many chapters in our text book describe the same changes in one dialect after another.

r-dropping in the Northeast The habit of dropping the r after a vowel began in the south of England after the American Revolution, and spread to America through the ports of Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., and continued spreading along the Atlantic seaboard, spreading North to Maine and South to Florida and the Gulf states. The r-dropping isogloss is thus a very large, closed circle that crossed the Atlantic ocean. But in the North, it stopped at the Connecticut River and went no further west.

r-dropping in the South And even in the South, r-dropping moved only along the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf States as far west as Texas. But in the upper South, r-dropping did not move east of the Appalachian mountains. Thus the speech of Appalachia (Chapter 3), Smokey Mountains (Chapter 4) and Memphis (Chapter 8) retain their /r/s steadfastly in all positions. To this day, in Kentucky and Tennessee, exactly as in Massachusetts and Connecticut, a physical boundary separates the eastern “r-less” half, and the western “r-full” half, of these states.

Connecticut River boundary The river makes a nice symbol for a boundary, but in reality, the migration pattern is the most important factor. The Scots- Irish moved through Boston and moved westward and then southward following the mountain valleys. It is their “r-full” speech that eventually predominated in the North, Midwest and the West. However, this does not mean r-full speech did not have to fight to survive. Consider the commencement address delivered by Henry James in 1905 at Bryn Mawr College.

Henry James, defenderr of the ahts “There are, you see, sounds of a mysterious intrinsic meanness, and there are sounds of a mysterious intrinsic frankness and sweetness; and I think the recurrent note I have indicated, fatherr and motherr and otherr, waterr and materr and scatterr, harrd and barrd, parrt, starrt and (dreadful to say) arrt (the repetition it is that drives home the ugliness), are signal specimens of what becomes of a custom of utterance out of which the principle of taste has dropped.” --quoted in Alan Metcalf, How We Talk, p. 65.

Henry James, defenderr of the ahts Notice I described James as “DEFENDERR of the ahts” using that nasty, ugly /r/ sound in defender. This represents James’ own speech as a “proper Bostonian” himself. An interesting difference between Bostonian and Southern r-less speech is the fact that Southerners drop their /r/s even more than in Boston and New York.

In the South, glottal stop is added before every word beginning with a vowel: Ø > /#__V. (Let h represent deleted /r/.) Boston: Pahk yoah carr in Hahvahd Yahd. Atlanta: Pahk yoah cah in Hahvahd Yahd. Both Boston and Atlanta have a rule dropping /r/ before a consonant. In Boston, /r/ occurs between two vowels in the phrase carr in (with smooth onset for in); by contrast, in Atlanta the sequence is pronounced cah in (with glottal onset preceding in), in perfect conformity with the rule.

New word to describe Henry James He was a good writer but a lousy linguist. We could perhaps describe him as a “snarb” (pronounced snahb)!!

cot/caught merger This isogloss is almost as big as the “r-full” isogloss discussed above. It starts in Northern Main and includes Eastern New England and New Jersey, and spreads westward to include the Northern half of the East and Midwest (but not Athens!), and the entire West. The text book mentiones this merger as affecting several dialect regions, inlcuding: Maine (p. 73), Canada (p. 97), Midwest (pp. 103, 107), Ohio (p. 121), California (p. 140), and Portland, Oregon (p. 152).

Wha—? The Portland writer states: “One characteristic of this area is the cought/cot merger.” (p. 152)

To be fair.....the writer acknowledges on the next page that the merger occurs in all Western cities and Canada, not just Portland. Indeed, the merger is found from Maine to Seattle, and from Canada to California. However, there is one important area in between that does NOT undergo the caught/cot merger. Instead, this area undergoes a whole series of vowel changes that seem to be designed to participate in the change while at the same time preventing the merger.

The series of changes is called the Northern Cities Shift The dialect area is called the Inland North. Professor William Labov has call this isogloss “The most profound dialect boundary in the United States. The Northern Cities Shift began in the 1950s in upstate New York (Syracuse, Buffalo) and spread westward to Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago and surrounding areas. Its influence seems to be expanding and strengthening.

Line the Inland North dialect area, the South also underwent a vowel shift. The Northern Cities Shift affected all short vowels in the system. The Southern Shift affected all long vowels in the system. We will be responsible for remembering only TWO of the changes in the Southern Shift.

First change: hide and mine sound like hahd and mahn. The vowel change combines with Southern r-dropping to cause the merger of hide and hard: both come out as “hahd”.

Second change: way and stay sound out their spelling. This causes merger of way and why: both come out way. I told him to go away [away]. Way to go! sounds like: Why to go! “Oh say can you see”... sounds like: Oh sigh can you see...

The two changes prevent merger. Say sounds like sigh, but no problem because sigh is now sah. High sounds like hah, but no problem because hay now sounds like high.

Review: Wave Theory brings two ideas together. Languages and dialects change. People move.

Wave Theory Predictions Thus, each dialect change will spread over an area defined by the open lines of communication at the time of the change. Many such changes, occurring at different times within the same general range as earlier changes, will cause a dialect area to emerge that is unique in the combination of changes it exhibits.

LING 280 Winter 2009