Query Details

Query Subject:	Australian A-Lengthening
Author:	Tonio Green
Submitter Email:	click here to access email

Linguistic LingField(s):	Phonetics Phonology

Query:	Hello, Can anyone confirm or deny the existence of a "lengthened short a" in Australian English, in particular an apparent phonemic split between short [ae] in 'lad', 'can' (modal verb) and [ae:] in 'bad', 'can' (noun)? If real, this is of course strongly reminiscent of the distinction between lax and tense [ae] in New York City. J. C. Wells' "Accents of English" only mentions lengthening of [ae] in monosyllables in Australian, which can be maintained when class 2 suffixes are added, allowing for pairs like h[ae]mmer 'mallet-like tool' vs. h[ae:]mmer 'one who hams', but says nothing about a c[ae]n/c[ae:n] contrast. Are there any Australians here who have contrasts like c[ae]n/c[ae:n] or l[ae]d/b[ae:d]? Has anything been published about this? Thanks in advance! -- Tonio Green
LL Issue:	16.669
Date posted:	07-Mar-2005
Back

Sums main page

New from Cambridge University Press!