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Mary/merry and horse/hoarse: Mergers in Southern American English

Phonetic mergers in American English have been studied throughout the last half century. Previous research has contributed social and phonetic explanations to the understanding of front and back vowel mergers before /l/, front vowel mergers before nasals and phonetically unconditioned back vowel mergers. Using data from the Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States (LAGS) and the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States (LAMSAS), this thesis examines the spread of the front vowel mergers in Mary and merry and the back vowel mergers in horse and hoarse. The two complementary sources of data allow for a social and phonetic approach to the examination of the merger.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc4523
Date05 1900
CreatorsEhrhardt, Brooke
ContributorsCukor-Avila, Patricia, Ross, John Robert, 1938-, Bailey, Guy
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
FormatText
RightsPublic, Copyright, Ehrhardt, Brooke, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

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