User:Grover cleveland/A

Context
Late Middle English had two phonemes /a/ and /a:/, differing only in length. /a/ ("short A") was found in words such as cat [kat] or trap [trap], and also before /r/ in words such as start [start]. /a:/ ("long A") was found in words such as face [fa:s], and before /r/ in words such as scare [ska:r].

As a result of the Great Vowel Shift, the "long A" [a:] of face was raised, initially to [æ:] and later to [ɛː] This fronting began in the fifteenth century. [æ:] "seems to have been the normal pronunciation in careful speech before 1650, and [ɛː] after 1650". . In a separate later development, the [a]  of cat or trap was generally fronted to [æ] (the value it retains in many accents today). This fronting was mostly confined to "vulgar or popular" speech in the sixteenth century, but gradually replaced the more conservative [a] in the seventeenth century, and was "generally accepted by careful speakers by about 1670".

These trends, allowed to operate unrestrictedly, would have left standard English without any vowels in the [a] or [a:] area by the late seventeenth century. However, this putative gap was filled by the following special developments:
 * In two environments, Middle English [a] developed to [a:] rather than [æ], by a process called broadening
 * Before nonprevocalic /r/ (e.g. in start), broadening happened generally
 * Before some fricatives, broadening happened inconsistently and sporadically
 * Words that had Middle English [au] had a regular development to [ɒ:] (for example, paw). However, before a nonprevocalic nasal, such words sometimes instead developed to [a:] (e.g. palm).

The [a:] of the late seventeenth century has generally backed to [ɑː] in several varieties of contemporary English, for example in Received Pronunciation.

Broadening before nonprevocalic /r/
In late Middle English, pairs such as cat, cart, were pronounced [kat], [kart] respectively, distinguished only by the presence or absence of [r]. However, by the late seventeenth century they were also distinguished by the quality of the vowel. In cat the vowel had been fronted to [kæt], while in cart it had been lengthened to [ka:rt]. This is the result of broadening of Middle English /a/ in the environment of a following nonprevocalic /r/. It seems to have first occurred in the dialects of southern England in the early fifteenth century, but did not affect Standard English until the later seventeenth century. It has affected most varieties of contemporary English, which have distinct vowels in pairs such as car, cart, although the original identity of the vowels is preserved in Irish English: [kæt], [kært].

Before intervocalic /r/, broadening did not generally take place: the vowel of carry [kæri] remained the same as that of cat: this is preserved in most modern varieties.

Broadening before fricatives
Unlike broadening before nonprevocalic /r/, which applied universally in Standard English, broadening before fricatives was inconsistent and sporadic. This broadening seems to have first occurred in the dialects of Southern England between about 1500 and 1650. It penetrated into Standard English from these dialects around the mid seventeenth century.

The primary environments which favored A-broadening was before the nonprevocalic voiceless fricatives /f, θ, s/. It is notable that the voiceless fricative /ʃ/ has never promoted A-broadening in Standard English in words like ash and crash. There is, however, dialectal evidence that broadening did occur in dialects. It is suggested that broadening occurred first, and most strongly, before front consonants, beginning with /f/, and gradually extended back first to /θ/ and finally to /s/. This would be consistent with the lack of broadening before /ʃ/, and with the pattern of broadening in contemporary Welsh English, where it is found principally before /f/ (see below).

Once broadening affected a particular word, it tended also to affect its inflectional derivatives. For example, from pass ([pa:s]) there was also passing [ˈpaːsɪŋ]. This introduced broadening into the environment _sV, from which it was otherwise excluded (compare passage which is derived not from the English word pass but separately from French, and was never affected by broadening).

In a phenomenon going back to Middle English, /f, θ/ alternate with their voiced equivalents /v, ð/, a phenomenon going back to Middle English. For example, late Middle English path [paθ] alternated with paths [paðz]. When broadening applied to words such as path, it naturally extended to these derivatives: thus when [paθ] broadened to [pa:θ], [paðz] also broadened to [pa:ðz]. This introduced broadening into the environment before a voiced fricative.

Broadening affected Standard English extremely inconsistently. It seems to have been favored when /a/ was adjacent to labial consonants or /r/. It is apparent that it occurred most commonly in short words, especially monosyllables, that were common and well-established in English at the time broadening took place (c. 1500-1650). Words of 3 or more syllables were hardly ever subject to broadening. Learned words, neologisms (such as gas, first found in the late seventeenth century), and Latinate or Greek borrowings were rarely broadened.

A particularly interesting case is that of the word father. In late Middle English this was generally pronounced [ˈfaðər], thus rhyming with gather [ˈgaðər]. Although the environment of a following [ð] did not usually subject a word to broadening (as evidenced by gather), it appears that the influence of the adjecent /f/ and /r/ combined in this case, so that father shows the results of broadening in nearly all varieties of contemporary English (e.g. American [ˈfɑðɚ]). Rather and lather appear to have been subject to broadening later, and in fewer varieties of English, by analogy with father.

The table below represents the results of broadening before fricatives in contemporary Received Pronunciation.


 * * indicates that the other pronunciation is also current in RP.
 * ** indicates that this word had late Middle English /au/ (possibly in addition to late Middle English /a/)
 * Words in italics were first recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary later than 1650

The words castle, fasten and raspberry are special cases where subsequent sound changes have altered the conditions initially responsible for lengthening. In castle and fasten, the /t/ was pronounced, according to a slight majority of sixteenth and seventeenth century sources. In raspberry we find /s/ rather than /z/.

The pattern of lengthening shown here for RP is generally found in southern England, the Caribbean, and the Southern hemisphere (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa). In North America, with the possible exception of older Boston accents, broadening is found only in father (the success of broadening in this word alone in North America unexplained ) and pasta (which follows the general pattern for recent Italian loanwords, cf. mafia). In the Boston area there has historically been a tendency to copy RP lengthening which perhaps reached its zenith in the 1930s but has since receded in the face of general North American norms.

In Irish English broadening is found only in father (which may, however, also have the FACE vowel). In Scottish and Ulster English the great majority of speakers have no distinction between TRAP and PALM (the Sam-psalm merger). Of the minority who do have the distinction, ??? In the variety of Welsh English examined by ..., lengthening was found only before /f/, and in father: however Wells finds broadening generally only in father, with some variation. In the north of England, broadening is found only in father and usually half and master.

Words with /au~a/ followed by a nasal in Middle English

 * * Not a French loanword

In some cases, both the /a/ and the /au/ forms have survived into modern English. For example, from Sandre, a Norman French form of the name Alexander, the modern English surnames Sanders and Saunders are both derived.

Evidence of loanwords
Look at the behavior of words from foreign languages that have [a]:


 * Before the GVS: they have FACE (e.g. armada??)
 * Between the GVS and the new /a:/ phoneme, then have [ɒ:] (e.g. spa)
 * After the new /a:/phoneme, they have that (e.g. spa).