{"title":"When PALMs are in your THOUGHTs, you head south: Evidence for diffusion of the low-back vowel system from New York to New Orleans","authors":"Aaron J. Dinkin, Katie Carmichael","doi":"10.1215/00031283-10867174","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In New Orleans, there is a white, working-class dialect of English, sometimes called “Yat”, that has several notable similarities with that of New York City. These similarities have been argued to be the result of 19th-century dialect contact between residents of the two cities. This paper examines the palm vowel in New Orleans and argues that it too shows evidence of diffusion from New York around this time period. Words of the palm lexical set that have been part of the English lexicon since before the 19th century, such as father and calm, are found to be merged with the thought phoneme in New Orleans, while more recent palm words such as garage are merged with lot. A handful of traditional lot words, such as John and god, are also sporadically attested with the thought phoneme. Since traditional New York City English also possesses a palm vowel backer than lot, with words such as John and god variably included in it—a pattern that is not widely found in other dialects closely connected to New Orleans English—the findings are interpreted as further evidence for dialect diffusion from New York to New Orleans.","PeriodicalId":46508,"journal":{"name":"American Speech","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"American Speech","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-10867174","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In New Orleans, there is a white, working-class dialect of English, sometimes called “Yat”, that has several notable similarities with that of New York City. These similarities have been argued to be the result of 19th-century dialect contact between residents of the two cities. This paper examines the palm vowel in New Orleans and argues that it too shows evidence of diffusion from New York around this time period. Words of the palm lexical set that have been part of the English lexicon since before the 19th century, such as father and calm, are found to be merged with the thought phoneme in New Orleans, while more recent palm words such as garage are merged with lot. A handful of traditional lot words, such as John and god, are also sporadically attested with the thought phoneme. Since traditional New York City English also possesses a palm vowel backer than lot, with words such as John and god variably included in it—a pattern that is not widely found in other dialects closely connected to New Orleans English—the findings are interpreted as further evidence for dialect diffusion from New York to New Orleans.
期刊介绍:
American Speech has been one of the foremost publications in its field since its founding in 1925. The journal is concerned principally with the English language in the Western Hemisphere, although articles dealing with English in other parts of the world, the influence of other languages by or on English, and linguistic theory are also published. The journal is not committed to any particular theoretical framework, and issues often contain contributions that appeal to a readership wider than the linguistic studies community. Regular features include a book review section and a “Miscellany” section devoted to brief essays and notes.