Phoneme \ɑː\ in General American

This phonetics article is adapted for General American. For an article valid in most of the English speaking world see **IPA phoneme /ɑː/**. For British English and Received Pronunciation see **Phoneme /ɑː/ in Received Pronunciation** and **IPA phoneme /ɒ/**.

In General American IPA phonetic symbol **/ɑː/** corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "start", "art", "palm", "spa", "lot" and "stop".

In Received Pronunciation, the IPA phoneme /ɑː/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "start", "art", "bath", "ask", "palm" and "spa".

In most of North America the father-bother merger is in effect. This means that IPA phoneme /ɒ/ sounds exactly like /ɑː/. This is the reason why "lot" and "stop" are mentioned in the first paragraph. Since many of the words with the phoneme /ɑː/ are spelled with the letter ‘o’, this phoneme is sometimes informally called **“short o”**. Moreover in this wiki (and also in dictionary.com) /ɒ/ means /ɒ,*BrE* ɑː*AmE*/.

Many people pronounce /ɑː/ and /ɑːr/ with different vowels (e.g. lodge as [lɑdʒ] and large as [lɑːrdʒ]); however since the difference is predictable there is no problem using the same symbol in both cases (e.g. /lɑːdʒ/ and /lɑːrdʒ/).

## Common words

Some common words which practice the pronunciation of /ɑː/ include the following:

* with "**a**": calm, father, wasp, watch

* with "**ar**": apart, are /ər, ɑːr/, aren't, argue /ˈɑːrɡjuː/, argument, arm, army, art, article, artist, bar, car, card, carpet, charge, charm, chart, dark, department, far, farm, garden, guard /ɡɑːrd/, guitar, hard, harm, large, march, mark, market, park, part, partner, party, regard, remark, sharp, smart, star, start, target /ˈtɑːrɡɪt/, yard

* /ɒ/ or /ɔː/: wallet, want, wash
* /ɒ/ or /ʌ/: what

* with "**o**": body, bother, clock, cost, d**o**ctor, f**o**llow, got, holiday, hot, involve, job, lot, model, not, possible, probably, problem, shop, stop, top

### Spelling anomalies

* heart /hɑːrt/
* knowledge /ˈnɒlɪdʒ/

## Less common words

* with "**a**": iguana, llama, palm, piñata, wad, wander
* with "**o**": Congo, connoisseur /ˌkɒnəˈsɜːr/, Honduras, Morocco
* with "e": entrepreneur /ˌɒntrəprəˈnɜːr/

* homophones: bomb, balm; knot, not;

## /ɑː/ or /ɔː/

All these words have an /ɒ/ sound in Received Pronunciation. In North America they may sound /ɑː/ or /ɔː/.

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

### /ɑːr/ or /ɔːr/

*Main article: Decoding exercises: "orV" and "orrV"*

* General American /ɑːr/: borrow, sorrow, sorry, tomorrow
* General American /ɔːr/: Florida, foreign, orange

## Cot - caught merger

*Main article: Cot-caught merger*

In many parts of North America (about half the United States and nearly 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/ and the pronunciation is normally [oɚ] or [o], north is [noɚrθ] or [norθ] and glori is [gloriː].

## Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1

### Spanish

In Latin America American English is taught (the United Kingdom is far away). Spanish speakers tend to pronounce /ɑː/ according to the spelling. They will pronounce "palm" as [pam] and "lot" as \*[lot].

## References

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