/a:/ & /o/

Question

0According to a book on American English pronunciation ('Lesson 12: Central and Back Vowels', page 136. I don't know the name of the book, though), /a/ is the vowel of father, box or calm. However, almost every dictionary out there establishes a difference between /a:/ and /o/, which would be the equivalento to what the book calls /a/. I find it a conflciting message. Or are the sounds of /a:/ and /o/ alike after all as the book indicates?02br02br00This way, /a:/ is found in 01i00arm02i00, 01i00father02i00 and /o/ is found in 01i00hot02i00, 01i00rock.02i02br02br00Note I chose to write the phonetics symbols in the ASCII code.0-

Marvin A. · Accepted Answer

0 I'm not quite sure I understand your symbols. For one thing, North American English doesn't really distinguish vowel length, vowel phonemes are realized as long vowel allophones before voiced consonant phonemes in the coda of a syllable. Secondly, [ o ] is used in words such as "hope" or "vote", in dialects that have monophthongized [ oU ]. [ a ] is used in NCVS shifted dialects.02br
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00In the Western US, and Western and Central Canada, arm, father, hot, cot, rock, dawn, and caught are all pronounced with [ A ]. People with the Canadian shift or the California shift, pronounce them all with [ O ] .02br
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00There are some people that lack the cot-caught merger, and thus pronounce "cot" as [ kAt ] and "caught" as [ kOt ]02br
00Some people from the Northern Midwest pronounce "cot" as [ kat ] and "caught" as [ kAt ] .02br
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00The bother-father merger is almost universal in North American English, except in Northeastern New England, such as the Boston accent, and New York and New Jersey English.02br
02br
00If you're aiming for a Western accent, you can simply pronounce all of them with [ A ] . (The Western accent is considered one of the least accented varieties of North American English.)02br
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00[ O ] is the open-mid back rounded vowel02br
00[ A ] is the open back unrounded vowel02br
00[ a ] is the open front unrounded vowel0-

EyeSeeYou · Answer

0This is where I took the symbols from: 01a05000 02a02br
02br
00/o/ is located in the ninth line, for example.0230hrefhttp://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-ascii.htm

Marvin A. · Answer

0 Ok. Here's the thing. Some North American dialects do not possess the father-bother merger: such as Boston, New York, and New Jersey. All three of those dialects are considered non-standard, and I don't recommend that you learn them. Virtually all other dialects use exactly the same vowel in words such as father and bother. Many Southern dialects use a different vowel in the words cot and caught. I also do not recommed that you learn a Southern accent. Most of the Northern Midwest makes a distinction between words like "cot" and "caught", but a new shift is causing "caught" to be pronounced as "cot"--although "cot" shifts as well, so they remain distinct. Because of this new shift, the closest dialect to "General American", (the dialect that is considered neutral and unaccent to most people) is currently the dialect that is spoken in the Western US, and Western and Central Canada. In this dialect, father, bother, cot, and caught all are pronounced with the 01b00same* vowel. The vowel that is used for those words is dependent upon whether the speaker possesses the California or Canadian vowel shift. Even if other speakers make a distinction between "cot" and "caught", or even "father" or "bother", speakers from this dialect will perceive them as being simply variations on the *same02b00 sound.02br
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00Therefore, 01b00some02b00 speakers use different vowels, other speakers do not. I would recommend that you use the [url="05000"]Open back unrounded vowel[/url] for all of those words. 0240

Anonymous · Answer

First off, the New York and New Jersey accents are father-bother merged, as are the rest of the Mid-Atlantic accents (Baltimore, Philadelphia, Wilmington). Only New England is unmerged.

Secondly, considering that roughly half the country is cot-caught merged, while the other half is not, doesn't it make more sense for the OP to adopt the speech patterns of wherever he plans on living? Whether you merge or not, you will still sound accented to at least half the country.

CalifJim · Answer

Just in case you didn't notice it, you are responding to a post that is more than four years old.

That's OK, but I'm just saying that I don't think you'll get a response.

CJ

/a:/ & /o/

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