T HE PERCEPTION AND PRODUCTION OF TWO VOWEL MERGERS IN C OWLITZ C OUNTY , W ASHINGTON Joey Stanley University of Georgia joeystan@uga.edu @joey_stan joeystanley.com American Dialect Society Annual Meeting Austin, Texas January 5, 2017
C OWLITZ C OUNTY , W ASHINGTON 2 Introduction
P ACIFIC N ORTHWEST E NGLISH ( CF . S TANLEY 2016) prevelar /e, ɛ , æ/ raising and merging (Wassink et al. 2009, Freeman 2014, Riebold 2015, etc.) = M ARY - MERRY - MARRY vowels /u, ʊ , o/ fronting (Ward 2003, Becker et al. 2013, McLarty & Kendall 2014, etc.) = POOL - PULL - POLE (- PULP ) vowels Linguistic Atlas of the Pacific Northwest ( LAPNW ) (Reed 1952, 1956, 1957, 1961) 3 Introduction
M ARY - MERRY - MARRY M ERGER M/e/ry = m/ ɛ /rry = m/æ/rry (henceforth “pre-rhotics”) ANAE : “This query was not pursued in most areas of the West and Midwest.” (Labov, Ash, & Boberg 2006:54, note 6) Change in progress 60 years ago fully merged (Reed 1952, Thomas 1958, Foster & Hoffman 1966) yet… a few older speakers retain /e/ in Mary and /æ/ in marry (Reed 1961:560) chair ”sporadically” as [ ɛ ɪ ] in eastern Washington (561) near even distribution of [ ɛ ] and [æ] in parents (562) 3 Introduction
“P RE -L ATERAL ” M ERGERS several mergers involving back vowels before ghoul coda laterals pool who’ll ul pull fool dual ʊl bull full goal hole pole ol gull bowl foal hull (pulp) ʌl dole dull 5 Introduction
“P RE -L ATERAL ” M ERGERS several mergers involving back vowels before ghoul coda laterals pool who’ll ul POOL - PULL pull fool dual ʊl bull full goal hole pole ol gull bowl foal hull (pulp) ʌl dole dull 6 Introduction
“P RE -L ATERAL ” M ERGERS several mergers involving back vowels before ghoul coda laterals pool who’ll ul PULL - POLE POOL - PULL pull fool dual ʊl bull full goal hole pole ol gull bowl foal hull (pulp) ʌl dole dull 7 Introduction
“P RE -L ATERAL ” M ERGERS several mergers involving back vowels before ghoul coda laterals pool who’ll ul PULL - POLE POOL - PULL pull fool dual HULL - HOLE ʊl bull full goal hole pole ol gull bowl foal hull (pulp) ʌl dole dull 8 Introduction
“P RE -L ATERAL ” M ERGERS several mergers involving back vowels before ghoul coda laterals pool who’ll ul PULL - POLE POOL - PULL pull fool dual HULL - HOLE ʊl PULL - HULL bull full goal hole pole ol gull bowl foal hull (pulp) ʌl dole dull 9 Introduction
“P RE -L ATERAL ” M ERGERS several mergers involving back vowels before ghoul coda laterals pool who’ll ul PULL - POLE POOL - PULL pull fool dual HULL - HOLE ʊl PULL - HULL bull full “deserve further study” (Labov, Ash, & Boberg 2006: 73) goal hole pole ol variable in Maryland (Bowie 2001) , Ohio (Arnold 2014) , gull bowl foal hull Missouri (Strelluf 2016) , and Utah (Baker & Bowie 2010) (pulp) ʌl dole bulk and bulge as [ ʌ ] or [ ʊ ], pull as [ ʊ ] (Reed 1961) dull 10 Introduction
O VERVIEW MARY - MERRY - MARRY historically variable, but likely merged today Status of pre-lateral mergers is unknown, though impressionistically less clear cut Hypothesis 1: complete MARY - MERRY - MARRY merger Hypothesis 2: separation of POOL , PULL , POLE , and PULP Hypothesis 3: production/intuition mismatch 11 Introduction
M ETHODOLOGY
D ATA C OLLECTION 40 natives of Cowlitz County, ages 18–70s Number Num ber o of t tokens ens word list minimal pairs total pre-laterals 376 842 1,218 word list (23) and minimal pairs (14) pre-rhotics 342 509 851 list in appendix slides total 718 1,351 2,069 intuition of own minimal pairs forced aligned with DARLA (Reddy & Stanford 2015) , which uses ProsodyLab (Gorman, Howell, & Wagner, 2011) and FAVE (Rosenfelder, Fruehwald, Evanini, & Yuan 2011) hand-corrected boundaries and extracted formants myself 13 Methodology
F ORMANT E XTRACTION boundaries can be arbitrary 14 Methodology
F ORMANT E XTRACTION boundaries can be arbitrary formants extracted at 15 points along the vowel+liquid duration 25% point used for now (reasoning in appendix slides) Bark normalized (Traunmüller 1997) Lobanov not ideal since not all vowels are present (Thomas & Kendall 2007–2015) 15 Methodology
R ESULTS 16
P RE -L ATERALS : M INIMAL P AIRS POOL is higher Pre-lateral tokens by all speakers (minimal pairs) Pre-lateral tokens by all speakers (minimal pairs) PULP is lower and fronter 3 3 (statistics in appendix slides) PULL = POLE 4 4 (independent two-sided t -tests) F1 (barks) F1 (barks) F1: t (215.15) = 0.13, p = 0.89 5 5 F2: t (253.56) = 2.50, p = 0.01 Pillai score: 0.02 (cf. Hay, Warren, & Drager 6 6 Vowel pool 2006, Hall-Lew 2010, Nycz & Hall-Lew 2013) Vowel pull Bhattacharyya’s affinity: 0.97 pole pull 7 7 pulp pole (cf. Bhattacharyya 1943, Calenge 2006, Johnson 2015) 10 10 8 8 6 6 F2 (barks) F2 (barks) 17 Results
P RE -L ATERALS : M INIMAL P AIRS POOL is higher Pre-lateral tokens by all speakers (minimal pairs) PULP is lower and fronter 3 (statistics in appendix slides) PULL = POLE 4 (independent two-sided t -tests) F1 (barks) F1: t (215.15) = 0.13, p = 0.89 5 F2: t (253.56) = 2.50, p = 0.01 Pillai score: 0.02 (cf. Hay, Warren, & Drager 6 2006, Hall-Lew 2010, Nycz & Hall-Lew 2013) Vowel Bhattacharyya’s affinity: 0.97 pull 7 pole (cf. Bhattacharyya 1943, Calenge 2006, Johnson 2015) 10 8 6 F2 (barks) 18 Results
P RE -L ATERALS : W ORD L IST PULL = POLE Pre-lateral tokens by all speakers (word list) (independent two-sided t -tests) F1: t (191.45) = 2.06, p = 0.04 3 F2: t (212.96) = 3.88, p < 0.001 4 Pillai score: 0.07 F1 (barks) Bhattacharyya’s affinity: 0.95 5 6 Vowel pull 7 pole 10 8 6 F2 (barks) 19 Results
P RE -L ATERALS : P ERCEPTION % = pairs reported merged ghoul pool who’ll ul hesitant responses pull fool 17% duel ʊl bull full 23% goal hole pole ol gull bowl foal hull 14% (pulp) ʌl dole dull 20 Results
P RE -R HOTICS : W ORD L IST MERRY = MARRY —no doubt about it Pre-rhotic tokens by all speakers (word list) Pre-rhotic tokens by all speakers (word list) MARY slightly higher than M { E , A } RRY 4 4 (independent one-sided t -tests) F1: t (175.87) = –6.44, p < 0.001 F2: t (188.15) = 4.36, p < 0.001 5 5 F1 (barks) F1 (barks) Pillai score: 0.20 Bhattacharyya’s affinity: 0.90 6 6 Vowel Vowel Mary merry merry marry marry 7 7 15 15 14 14 13 13 12 12 11 11 10 10 F2 (barks) F2 (barks) 21 Results
P RE -R HOTICS : M INIMAL P AIRS (near-)complete merger Pre-rhotic tokens by all speakers (minimal pairs) Pre-rhotic tokens by all speakers (minimal pairs) hint of a three-way distinction 4 4 5 5 F1 (barks) F1 (barks) 6 6 Vowel Vowel Mary merry Mary marry marry 7 7 15 15 14 14 13 13 12 12 11 11 10 10 F2 (barks) F2 (barks) 22 Results
P RE -R HOTICS : M INIMAL P AIRS (near-)complete merger Pre-rhotic tokens by all speakers (minimal pairs) hint of a three-way distinction 4 slight MARY ~ MARRY distinction (independent one-sided t -tests) F1: t (212.07) = –4.11, p < 0.001 5 F1 (barks) F2: t (257.82) = 2.67, p = 0.004 Pillai score: 0.13 6 Bhattacharyya’s affinity: 0.94 Vowel Mary marry 7 15 14 13 12 11 10 F2 (barks) 23 Results
P RE -R HOTICS : M INIMAL P AIRS (near-)complete merger Pre-rhotic tokens by all speakers (minimal pairs) Pre-rhotic tokens by all speakers (minimal pairs) hint of a three-way distinction 4 4 slight MARY ~ MARRY distinction (independent one-sided t -tests) F1: t (212.07) = –4.11, p < 0.001 5 5 F1 (barks) F1 (barks) F2: t (257.82) = 2.67, p = 0.004 Pillai score: 0.13 6 6 Bhattacharyya’s affinity: 0.94 Vowel Vowel Mary merry Mary “phoneme continuum”? marry marry 7 7 (see appendix slides) 15 15 14 14 13 13 12 12 11 11 10 10 F2 (barks) F2 (barks) 24 Results
P RE -R HOTICS : P ERCEPTION confidently answered MARY (/e/) = MERRY (/ ɛ /): 98% MARY (/e/) = MARRY (/æ/): 99% MERRY (/ ɛ /) = MARRY (/æ/): 97% 25 Results
O VERVIEW PULL vs. POLE MARY vs. MERRY / MARRY word list minimal pairs word list minimal pairs phoneme “merged” merged distinct pr produ duction continuum speake sp ker intuition on 23% reported merged 98% reported merged clear case of “near-merger ” (Labov et al. 1972, Labov et al. 1991, Di Paolo 1992, Bowie 2001, etc.) MARY - MERRY / MARRY : distinct in production, merged in perception PULL - POLE : merged in production, distinct in perception 26 Discussion
C ONCLUSION Cowlitz County natives merge PULL and POLE while maintaining a distinction between MARY and MERRY / MARRY . Hypothesis 1: ✗ complete MARY - MERRY - MARRY merger Hypothesis 2: ✗ separation of POOL , PULL , POLE , and PULP Hypothesis 3: ✓ production/intuition mismatch awareness of possible distinction affecting intuition? Ongoing changes in Cowlitz County 27 Conclusion
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