/æ/ raising
American and Canadian English phonological phenomenon / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In the sociolinguistics of the English language, /æ/ raising or short-a raising is a phenomenon by which the "short a" vowel /æ/ ⓘ, the TRAP/BATH vowel (found in such words as ash, bath, man, lamp, pal, rag, sack, trap, etc.), is pronounced with a raising of the tongue. In most American and many Canadian English accents, /æ/ raising is specifically /æ/ tensing: a combination of greater raising, fronting, lengthening, and gliding that occurs only in certain words or environments. The most common context for tensing /æ/ throughout North American English, regardless of dialect, is when this vowel appears before a nasal consonant (thus, for example, commonly in fan, but rarely in fat).[1]
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The realization of this "tense" (as opposed to "lax") /æ/ varies from [ɛː] to [ɛə] to [eə] to [ɪə], and can be dependent on the particular dialect or even speaker. One common realization is [ɛə], a transcription that will be used throughout this article to represent the tensed pronunciation.
Variable raising of /æ/ (and /æɔ/, the MOUTH vowel transcribed with ⟨aʊ⟩ in General American) before nasal consonants also occurs in Australian English.[2]
Following consonant |
Example words[4] |
New York City, New Orleans[5] |
Baltimore, Philadelphia[6] |
Midland US, New England, Pittsburgh, Western US |
Southern US |
Canada, Northern Mountain US |
Minnesota, Wisconsin |
Great Lakes US | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Non-prevocalic /m, n/ |
fan, lamb, stand | [ɛə][7][upper-alpha 1][upper-alpha 2] | [ɛə][7] | [ɛə~ɛjə][10] | [ɛə][11] | [ɛə][12] | |||
Prevocalic /m, n/ |
animal, planet, Spanish |
[æ] | |||||||
/ŋ/[13] | frank, language | [ɛː~eɪ~æ][14] | [æ~æɛə][10] | [ɛː~ɛj][11] | [eː~ej][15] | ||||
Non-prevocalic /ɡ/ |
bag, drag | [ɛə][upper-alpha 1] | [æ][upper-alpha 3] | [æ][7][upper-alpha 4] | |||||
Prevocalic /ɡ/ | dragon, magazine | [æ] | |||||||
Non-prevocalic /b, d, ʃ/ |
grab, flash, sad | [ɛə][upper-alpha 1] | [æ][upper-alpha 4][17] | [ɛə][17] | |||||
Non-prevocalic /f, θ, s/ |
ask, bath, half, glass |
[ɛə][upper-alpha 1] | |||||||
Otherwise | as, back, happy, locality |
[æ][upper-alpha 5] | |||||||
|