User:Gilgamesh~enwiki/New General American


 * This is a user page project. It is not meant as an accredited reference.

This is an attempt to describe the phonology of General American (GA) English as it is most commonly spoken by people my age (b. 1980) and younger.

Consonants

 * The plosives and the affricate  have aspirated allophones  at the very beginning of stressed syllables.  But this aspiration does not occur if the consonant comes immediately after another consonant beginning the syllable, so the clusters  are not aspirated.  But the syllable boundary is an important determining factor, so the sequences  still become.
 * and have an allophone, the alveolar flap, only between vowels where the next syllable is not stressed, or at the end of a word before another word that starts with a vowel.  This is called intervocalic alveolar flapping, and is a fundamental sandhi in GA.  Some speakers may actually weakly distinguish  from  in polished speech by flapping them as voiceless  and voiced  respectively; but most speakers do not do this, and will only hear , which they will perceive as an allophone of .  For example, better  can be articulated as , but it is usually said and heard as  and a homophone of bedder.
 * Similarly, and  have a related allophone, a nasalized alveolar flap, with voiceless nasalized  as a possible weak distinction for .  For example, banter  can be articulated as , but it is usually said and heard as  and a homophone of banner.
 * is abundant in speech, but is a conditionally independent phoneme which can only be perceived as an independent phoneme word-internally before a vowel.  It is extremely scarce in words of native English origin, but can be found in interjections like uh-oh .  In loanwords from other languages with this phoneme (particularly from Hawaiian),  is less likely to be retained in place names (like Hawaii), but is usually retained in learnt terms like 'a'a .  If  is found at the beginning of a word, it is not a separate phoneme, but prosthetic consonant for sentences that begin with a vowel.  If  is found word-internally before a consonant, or at the end of a word, it is usually perceived as an allophone of .   as an allophone of other plosives is possible, such as temp  having a possible articulation of .  It is even possible for  to appear before, such as with tempt  having a possible articulation of.
 * The phonemes are often only weakly distinguished in the combinations .  While enunciations of  can be heard, they are usually  in relaxed speech.  Additionally, the sequence  can be heard as  or  without affecting the underlying perception of both consonant phonemes.
 * The phonemes used to have more prominent approximant allophones of, but these have mostly restrengthened into fricatives among younger speakers.
 * is all but extinct in natural speech, having been replaced by . However, it is still a known distinction, and speakers can enunciate the distinction with effort.  Those who fail to perceive  as a phoneme in its own right may perceive its enunciated articulations as the consonant cluster.
 * has a "dark" allophone of which practically always is the realization at the end of closed syllables.   elsewhere can be "clear"  or "dark"  in free variation.  However, "dark"  also greatly affects most vowels that precede it, while "light"  does not do this; see Vowels.
 * GA has yod-dropping before all coronal consonants.

Vowels

 * Only back unrounded vowels are stable before .,  and  function as allophones of KIT , DRESS  and GOOSE  respectively, because the former three are only found before.
 * splits off into an additional syllable after NURSE, FLEECE , FACE , PRICE , CHOICE  or START.
 * TRAP and MOUTH  merge as  before .  However, owl is two-syllable.
 * TRAP and DRESS  become FACE  usually become before .  Certain words, like anger and angry, are more likely to keep their, resulting in a phoneme split.  KIT   tenses into FLEECE  before.
 * STRUT, FOOT , GOAT and COMMA  merge as  before.
 * The cot-caught merger is variable in GA, depending on the speaker. Speakers with the merger tend to pronounce CLOTH/THOUGHT as LOT/PALM .  Even many speakers without the merger distinguish the phonemes in a subtle way.
 * Some GA speakers have -tensing in certain words of the TRAP set and in practically all of the BATH set. This tense articulation is at or near .  Others use the plain TRAP vowel for all of these without lexically-distinctive tensing or lack thereof.  At this time there is still seldom any conscious distinction between lax  and tense, and dictionaries do not usually treat them as separate phonemes.
 * The GOOSE vowel has an allophone,  or  after bilabial consonants.
 * A distinction between SQUARE and a combination of DRESS + may still be recognized by some GA speakers in regions where the Mary-marry-merry merger has not gone through. For those without the merger, SQUARE may be realized as  or similar.  For those with the merger, it as well as  merge with.
 * A combination of LOT + was historically, and today there is still a split between some GA speakers who have for them all, and the greater majority of those who have  in -orrow words and in sorry but  in virtually every other case.  Provisionally, a broad notation of  can be used for LOT +.
 * The horse-hoarse merger is widespread, such that a distinction between NORTH and FORCE is long-extinct outside of a few increasingly isolated regions where the merger has not yet gone through. For a theoretical minority who still make it, a broad transcription of  can be used for the FORCE set.
 * The traditional CURE set is here renamed TOUR, because (as would be found in cure) is no longer a stable combination in GA.  Instead,  is found in those words, using the NURSE vowel.  Some other words in the traditional TOUR set also do not have :
 * poor, whore, your and the name Moore (but not the word moor) may have the FORCE vowel (and thus, for most GA speakers, the NORTH vowel). door and floor always have FORCE, in GA and worldwide.
 * Most -ure and -ur- words usually have the NURSE vowel, even with yod-dropping.

Samples

 * The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.