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A merger is the opposite: where two (or more) phonemes merge and become indistinguishable. In English, this happens most often with vowels, although not exclusively. See phonemic differentiation for more information.
The shift causes the vowel sound in words like cot, nod and stock and the vowel sound in words like caught, gnawed and stalk to merge into a single phoneme; therefore the pairs cot and caught, stock and stalk, nod and gnawed become perfect homophones, and shock and talk, for example, become perfect rhymes.
The card–cord merger is a merger of Early Modern English [ɑːr] with [ɒr], found in some Caribbean, English West Country and Southern and Western U.S. accents. The horse–hoarse merger is the merger of /ɔː/ and /oʊ/ before historic /r/ occurring in most varieties of English. The square–nurse merger occurs in some areas of England.
The horse–hoarse merger, or north–force merger, is the merger of the vowels /ɔː/ and /oʊ/ before historic /r/, which makes word pairs like horse–hoarse, for–four, war–wore, or–oar, morning–mourning pronounced the same.
A complete merger of /ɪ/ and /ɛ/, not restricted to positions before nasals (and so termed kit–dress merger), is found in many speakers of Newfoundland English. The pronunciation in words like bit and bet is [ɪ], but before /r/, in words like beer and bear, it is [ɛ]. [21]
The Low-Back-Merger Shift is a chain shift of vowel sounds found in several dialects of North American English, beginning in the last quarter of the 20th century and most significantly involving the low back merger accompanied by the lowering and backing of the front lax vowels: / æ /, / ɛ /, and / ɪ / (in words like TRAP, DRESS, and KIT respectively).
Reduction of /ts/ to /s/ – a Middle English reduction that produced the modern sound of soft c . Medial cluster reduction – elision of certain stops in medial clusters, such as the /t/ in postman. Insertion (epenthesis) of stops after nasals in certain clusters, for example making prince sound like prints, and dreamt rhyme with attempt.
Within the chart “close”, “open”, “mid”, “front”, “central”, and “back” refer to the placement of the sound within the mouth. [3] At points where two sounds share an intersection, the left is unrounded, and the right is rounded which refers to the shape of the lips while making the sound. [4]