The integration of a new low-central vowel in Canadian English
Charles Boberg, McGill University
Friday, April 11, 2008, 4:00 PM
The nativization or phonological adaptation of words transferred from other languages can have structural phonological consequences for the recipient language. In English, nativization of words in which the stressed vowel is spelled with the letter <a>, here called "foreign (a)" words, leads to variable outcomes, because English <a> represents not one but three phonemes. The most common outcomes historically have been /ey/ (as in potato), /æ/ (tobacco) and /ah/ (spa), but vowel choice shows diachronic, social and regional variation, including systematic differences between major national dialects. British English uses /ah/ for long vowels and /æ/ elsewhere, American English prefers /ah/ everywhere, while Canadian English traditionally prefers /æ/. The Canadian pattern is now changing, with younger speakers adopting American /ah/-variants. This paper presents new data on foreign (a) in Canadian English, confirming the use of /ah/, but finds that auditory analysis cannot classify all outcomes as /æ/ or /ah/: a third phonetically intermediate outcome is often observed. Acoustic analysis confirmed the extraphonemic status of these outcomes, which may constitute a new low-central vowel phoneme in Canadian English.
Last Modified: April 3, 2008