Canadian raising in Fort Wayne, Indianacewit.indiana.edu/img/2016-poster-comp/Brita...
1
Background (1) Dailey-O’Cain, Jennifer. (1997) “Canadian Raising in a Midwestern U.S. city”. Language Variation & Change 9.1. pps. 107-120. (2) Moreton, Elliott, and Erik R. Thomas. "Origins of Canadian Raising in voiceless-coda effects: a case study in phonologization." Laboratory phonology 9 (2007): 37-64. (3) Thomas, Erik Robert. (1995). Phonetic factors and perceptual reanalyses in sound change. PhD diss; UT Austin. (4) Boersma, P. & Weenink, D. (2010). Praat: doing phonetics by computer. Version 5.1.32 - www.praat.org . (5) Xu, Y. (2007-2015). FormantPro.praat. Available from: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/yi/FormantPro/. Thank you to Professor Stuart Davis, whose knowledge and ideas have been instrumental, and to Abby Elston and Katie Blake for help collecting and analyzing data. Discussion EXPECTATIONS: • F1 height: inverse relationship to tongue height in vowel. • Raising is expected preceding voiceless sounds, but not preceding voiced sounds. FINDINGS: • 18-22 yr old women from FW show CR • Older subjects do not appear to do so. • No prior claims that CR extends as far south as Indianapolis: we originally analyzed those data as a control. • However: onset of raising? DISCUSSION • Possible evidence for a change-in-progress: not only in FW, but farther south as well. References & Acknowledgements Canadian raising in Fort Wayne, Indiana Alyssa Strickler (Email: [email protected]) Faculty Mentor: Kelly Harper Berkson Indiana University, Bloomington • These are pilot data; currently recording more people. • Expand analysis: • More females, esp. older speakers • Male speakers • More vowel contexts—[aʊ] as in about • More prosodic contexts: • Multi-syllable words (cite, citing) • Different stress environments (ci ting, cita tion) CONTRIBUTIONS • Increase knowledge of an underdocumented variety of English. • Identify dialectal differences in CR patterns. • Measuring differences: formant frequencies (Data analysis: PRAAT 4 , Xu 5 ) • “Canadian Raising” (CR) refers to a linguistic phenomenon affecting certain vowels—like the ou in about. 1, 2, 3 • This study focuses on the diphthong [aɪ] • Preceding voiced sounds, as in bide • and voiceless sounds, as in bite • In dialects with CR, these words have slightly different vowel sounds. • There are reports that Fort Wayne English exhibits CR. Our questions: • Does FW English have CR? • If so, are there age effects? Methods & Analysis Results—Fort Wayne Women Results—Young Indianapolis Women [ɑ] as in lot • Data collection ongoing: so far, 10 female participants. • 8 young (4 from FW, 4 from Indianapolis) • 2 older from FW (57 yrs, 78 yrs) • Each participant read three repetitions of a 96-item wordlist, containing minimal pairs of expected raising and non-raising environments (i.e. bide/bite, ride/write) [i] as in beet 18-22 yr old females from FW show CR in expected contexts—lower F1 (higher vowel) in 1 st half of diphthong. Little difference in 1 st half of vowel— where raising, if present, would be seen. 1 st half of vowel— where raising, if present, would be seen—identical. Suggests no CR in older female speakers. Unexpected divergence in 1 st half of vowel. Suggests that CR has spread farther south than predicted. Future Directions
Transcript of Canadian raising in Fort Wayne, Indianacewit.indiana.edu/img/2016-poster-comp/Brita...
Background
(1) Dailey-O’Cain, Jennifer. (1997) “Canadian Raising in a Midwestern U.S. city”. Language Variation & Change 9.1. pps. 107-120. (2) Moreton, Elliott, and Erik R. Thomas. "Origins of Canadian Raising in voiceless-coda effects: a case study in phonologization." Laboratory phonology 9 (2007): 37-64. (3) Thomas, Erik Robert. (1995). Phonetic factors and perceptual reanalyses in sound change. PhD diss; UT Austin. (4) Boersma, P. & Weenink, D. (2010). Praat: doing phonetics by computer. Version 5.1.32 - www.praat.org . (5) Xu, Y. (2007-2015). FormantPro.praat. Available from: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/yi/FormantPro/.
Thank you to Professor Stuart Davis, whose knowledge and ideas have been instrumental, and to Abby Elston and
Katie Blake for help collecting and analyzing data.
Discussion
EXPECTATIONS: • F1 height: inverse relationship to tongue
height in vowel. • Raising is expected preceding voiceless
sounds, but not preceding voiced sounds.
FINDINGS: • 18-22 yr old women from FW show CR • Older subjects do not appear to do so.
• No prior claims that CR extends as far south as Indianapolis: we originally analyzed those data as a control.
• However: onset of raising?
DISCUSSION • Possible evidence for a change-in-progress:
not only in FW, but farther south as well.
References & Acknowledgements
Canadian raising in Fort Wayne, Indiana
Alyssa Strickler (Email: [email protected]) Faculty Mentor: Kelly Harper Berkson
Indiana University, Bloomington
• These are pilot data; currently recording more people.
• Expand analysis: • More females, esp. older speakers • Male speakers • More vowel contexts—[aʊ] as in about
• More prosodic contexts: • Multi-syllable words (cite, citing) • Different stress environments (citing,
citation)
CONTRIBUTIONS • Increase knowledge of an underdocumented
variety of English. • Identify dialectal differences in CR patterns.
• Measuring differences: formant frequencies
(Data analysis: PRAAT4, Xu5)
• “Canadian Raising” (CR) refers to a linguistic phenomenon affecting certain vowels—like the ou in about.1, 2, 3
• This study focuses on the diphthong [aɪ] • Preceding voiced sounds, as in bide • and voiceless sounds, as in bite
• In dialects with CR, these words have slightly different vowel sounds.
• There are reports that Fort Wayne English exhibits CR. Our questions:
• Does FW English have CR? • If so, are there age effects?
Methods & Analysis
Results—Fort Wayne Women
Results—Young Indianapolis Women [ɑ] as in lot
• Data collection ongoing: so far, 10 female participants.
• 8 young (4 from FW, 4 from Indianapolis) • 2 older from FW (57 yrs, 78 yrs)
• Each participant read three repetitions of a 96-item wordlist, containing minimal pairs of expected raising and non-raising environments (i.e. bide/bite, ride/write)
[i] as in beet
18-22 yr old females from FW show CR
in expected contexts—lower F1 (higher vowel) in 1st
half of diphthong.
Little difference in 1st half of vowel—where raising, if
present, would be seen.
1st half of vowel—where raising, if
present, would be seen—identical.
Suggests no CR in older female
speakers.
Unexpected divergence in 1st
half of vowel. Suggests that CR has spread farther
south than predicted.
Future Directions
