Phoneme \ɔː\ in General American (international version)

This phonetics article is adapted for General American, highlighting the differences with British English and Received Pronunciation. For a simple article see Phoneme /ɔː/ in General American. For Received Pronunciation see IPA phoneme /ɔː/ and IPA phoneme /ɒ/.

In General American the IPA phonetic symbol **/ɔː/** corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "north", "force", "thought", and also "cloth" (the latter is pronounced /ɒ/ in Received Pronunciation).

**IPA consonants**

In Received Pronunciation, this phoneme is heard in
"north", "force", and "thought". Additionally, many people pronounce "sure" as /ʃɔːr/ instead of the more traditional /ʃʊər/. See IPA phoneme /ʊə/.

In Received Pronunciation /ɔːr/ is pronounced [ɔː] unless it is followed by a vowel, i.e. when the spelling has an "r", it is normally silent unless it is followed by a vowel.

In General American the "r" in /ɔːr/ is always pronounced. Many people pronounce /ɔː/ and /ɔːr/ with different vowels (e.g. sauce as [sɔs] and source as [sors]); however since the difference is predictable there is no problem using the same symbol in both cases (e.g. /sɔːs/ and /sɔːrs/).

There are places in the United Kingdom where /ɔːr/ is pronounced [ɔːr], and places in North America where /r/ is silent.

## Common words

Some common words containing **/ɔː/** include the following:

* with "o"*AmE*: across, along, cloth, cost, cross, dog, gone, long, loss, lost, off, offer, office, often, soft, song, strong, wrong

* with "oa": abroad, broad
* with "ough": ought, thought

past tense and past participle: bought, brought, fought, sought, thought
* with "a": water
* with "al": almost, already, alter, always, chalk, false, salt, talk, walk
* with "all": ball, call, fall, hall, mall, small, talk, walk, wall
* with "aw": dawn, flaw, hawk, jaw, law, lawn, raw, saw, shawl, thaw, yawn
* with "au": auction, August, Aussie,*AmE* austerity, Australia,*AmE* Austria,*AmE* author, autumn, cause, clause, daughter, fault, launch

past tense and past participle: caught, taught
* with "ou": cough*AmE*

Words marked *AmE* are pronounced with /ɒ/ in Received Pronunciation.

## /ɔːr/

Some common words containing **/ɔːr/** include the following (note that the /r/ is silent in Received Pronunciation, unless it is followed by a vowel)

* with "or": afford, born, cork, door, floor, fork, horse, lord, more, nor, or, pork, score, short, store, storm, sword
* with "oar": boar, board, oar, roar, soar
* with "our": court, four, pour
* with "ar": quarter, war, warm, warn

* homophones: bored/board - or/oar/ore.

## /ɔː/, /ɑː/ or /ɒ/

Note that /ɒ/ and /ɑː/ sound identically in most of North America. All these words have an /ɒ/ sound in Received Pronunciation.

* alcoh**o**l, B**o**ston, ch**o**colate, gone, on, wash

### /ɔːr/, /ɑːr/ or /ɒr/

* borrow, Florida, orange, sorrow, sorry, tomorrow, warrant, warranty

## Cot-caught merger

*Main article: Cot-caught merger*

In many parts of North America (about half the United States and all of Canada) /ɑː/ and /ɔː/ sound the same. This is in addition to the father - bother merger, where /ɑː/ and /ɒ/ sound the same. This means that caught /ɔː/, cot /ɒ/, father /ɑː/ and bother /ɒ/ have all the same stressed vowel /ɑː/. In this accent /ɔː/ appears only followed by /r/: north, force.

Homophones
The cot-caught merger generates very few homophones.

* bot (computer program; shortening of *robot)* - bought; collar - caller; cot - caught; don (put clothes on)/Don (nickname of Donald) - dawn/Dawn; stock - stalk;

## Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1

### Spanish

Many Spanish speakers will pronounce the short o sound as /ɔː/ even when it should be pronounced /ɑː/: *lot* as \*/lɔːt/.

It is not uncommon to hear them pronouncing \*/ˈalsəʊ/ or \*/alˈtɜːrnatɪv/.

## References

1. ↑ William Labov,The Organization of Dialect Diversity in North America, The o/oh merger [i.e. The /ɑː - ɔː/ merger].