Talk:Pronunciation of English ⟨a⟩/Archive 1

message: Does anyone have a reference for this name for this phenomenon?  It doesn't quite parse to me; and the only Google references for "pan tensing" are Wikipedia clones.  -- Smerdis of Tlön 16:11, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name 

message: The opening paragraph describes the 'broad A' as a US-specific pronunciation, mentioning nothing of the broad A in English used in Britain. In fact the whole article mentions nothing of this. Either the broad A page is a bad redirect, or someone has neglected to make this article global. Boothman 19:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a U.S.-specific phenomenon, so it's kind of difficult to talk about what happens in other parts of the world. And the opening paragraph describes æ-tensing and makes no mention of "broad A" at all. As you suspect, the redirect from broad A is what's wrong, and I'll fix it. --Angr (t·c) 19:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yet More Americentrism 

message: === Why moved? ===
"Broad A" is a much better title for this article than "trap-bath split". "Broad A" is a term actually used by people (dialectologists, elocutionists, lexicographers, and the general public); "trap-bath split" is found almost exclusively within Wikipedia, and only has twelve Google hits. I'm going to move the article back unless someone can give me a good reason not to. AJD 20:19, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine with me. There were originally two pages, and I merged them together under Broad A. An anonymous user then cut-and-pasted all the text from Broad A into Trap-bath split (which is Wells's name for it, so it's not just Wikipedia). But I agree Broad A is a better place for it. --Angr/ 04:46, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Actually father often has the CAUGHT vowel in Hiberno-English.  This is not the father-bother merger; the only other affected word I can think of is R (the name of the letter: hence the spelling ar for this is confusing in Ireland).  What other words are not in trap-bath, not in father-bother, with the broad-A vowel not followed by R? Joestynes 14:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Wells' keyword is PALM; calm and psalm could be here too. But then some people pronounce these words with . PALM words often have the same vowel as TRAP in Hiberno-English (psalm and Sam then being homophones). It's actually very hard to find a word that has the "broad A" in all accents of English (or even all "major" accents of English) not followed by R. American English has it in loanwords like pasta and drama, but many English and Canadian speakers have  there (sort of an inverse trap-bath split). Sonata maybe? --Angr (t·c) 15:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  None of the minimal pairs on this RP list are homonyms in my idiolect, though the have-halve / ant-aunt difference seems purely one of vowel length.  It's because there are so few such pairs that the phonemic status of "Broad A" is so marginal for me; without them the BATH words' vowel would be an allophone of  (and the PART words' a different allophone).  Joestynes 16:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

text:  Presumably accents with pairs like Sam and psalm the same (like many Scottish and northern Irish accents) just don't have the "broad A" as a phoneme distinct from  or  or whatever you want to call it?  I think this is the usual analysis of Scottish English. --JHJ 17:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

text:  I've heard father pronounced with short  (which is the trap vowel round here), though I don't do so myself.  The words I have with the "broad A" (which I actually call the "long A" except when communicating with Americans) are father and rather; half, calf and their relatives (though half past is usually ); can't and shan't; several words with alm in the spelling as mentioned above; and a number of loanwords, including drama and sonata but not pasta.  I believe this is fairly standard for the northern half of England.--JHJ 17:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Moved from [[Talk:Trap-bath split]]

message: "Broad A" is a much better title for this article than "trap-bath split". "Broad A" is a term actually used by people (dialectologists, elocutionists, lexicographers, and the general public); "trap-bath split" is found almost exclusively within Wikipedia, and only has twelve Google hits. I'm going to move the article back unless someone can give me a good reason not to. AJD 20:19, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine with me. There were originally two pages, and I merged them together under Broad A. An anonymous user then cut-and-pasted all the text from Broad A into Trap-bath split (which is Wells's name for it, so it's not just Wikipedia). But I agree Broad A is a better place for it. --Angr/ 04:46, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Actually father often has the CAUGHT vowel in Hiberno-English.  This is not the father-bother merger; the only other affected word I can think of is R (the name of the letter: hence the spelling ar for this is confusing in Ireland).  What other words are not in trap-bath, not in father-bother, with the broad-A vowel not followed by R? Joestynes 14:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Wells' keyword is PALM; calm and psalm could be here too. But then some people pronounce these words with . PALM words often have the same vowel as TRAP in Hiberno-English (psalm and Sam then being homophones). It's actually very hard to find a word that has the "broad A" in all accents of English (or even all "major" accents of English) not followed by R. American English has it in loanwords like pasta and drama, but many English and Canadian speakers have  there (sort of an inverse trap-bath split). Sonata maybe? --Angr (t·c) 15:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  None of the minimal pairs on this RP list are homonyms in my idiolect, though the have-halve / ant-aunt difference seems purely one of vowel length.  It's because there are so few such pairs that the phonemic status of "Broad A" is so marginal for me; without them the BATH words' vowel would be an allophone of  (and the PART words' a different allophone).  Joestynes 16:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

text:  Presumably accents with pairs like Sam and psalm the same (like many Scottish and northern Irish accents) just don't have the "broad A" as a phoneme distinct from  or  or whatever you want to call it?  I think this is the usual analysis of Scottish English. --JHJ 17:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

text:  I've heard father pronounced with short  (which is the trap vowel round here), though I don't do so myself.  The words I have with the "broad A" (which I actually call the "long A" except when communicating with Americans) are father and rather; half, calf and their relatives (though half past is usually ); can't and shan't; several words with alm in the spelling as mentioned above; and a number of loanwords, including drama and sonata but not pasta.  I believe this is fairly standard for the northern half of England.--JHJ 17:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why moved? 

message: Two things.  First, the article (in the fourth paragraph) implies that the vowel change was  to  .  Is there enough evidence on the historic sounds to justify those particular transcriptions, given the variability of both sounds in present day accents?
Second, the Gupta (2005) paper that I added as a reference for the geographic distribution of the split in England (version available online here) suggests that the variation in words like aunt, dance and chance is considerably older than that in words like bath and grass, in fact suggesting that it dates to the 14th century for the former words, and quotes a reference Dobson (1968).  
--JHJ 17:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the split 

message: :In the Southern United States, the pattern most characteristic of Southern American English does not employ æ-tensing at all, but rather what has been called the "Southern drawl":  becomes in essence a triphthong .
Is this for real? It sounds more likely to be how the pronunciation is percieved by speakers of other dialects rather than how they actually say it. --Ptcamn 21:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Southern drawl

message: It took me forever (I've been wondering for about 8 years) to finally figure out why dictionaries didn't have the correct phonetics for things such as ham, can, jam, etc. I always thought that everyone says these words this way. It's definately how I hear them. I just don't see how, say "plan" and "plack" can be considered to have the same vowel sound. Wierd. This adds nothing to the discussion I suppose. I just had to express my amazement. Also, I guess I should note that I was reared in Southwest Missouri and have never been to New England, so it may be in this region as well.
:This was regarding bad-lad split, sorry.--68.89.209.197 04:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  wow 

message: I think I speak with a fairly standard southern British accent. Reading this and reflecting on my accent, I have the following questions:
*In what words do we use  before /nd/?
: Demand and command are two which come to mind.--JHJ 20:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think so, no.  I'm from the North, and don't have the trap/bath split ( in both), but I do have a long vowel in the alm words, and I don't think I've ever heard them pronounced otherwise.  I think the vowel in these words is due to the influence of the disappeared .  (Yes, I know it's still there in some accents.)--JHJ 20:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I'll let an Aussie answer this.--JHJ 20:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I use a long /æː/ in pal, and I think in (old) gal, though I never actually say that word; but short in Al, Hal, shall, which is predictable from their being either contractions or grammatical functions.
Gailtb 06:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questions from my accent