In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions, so fewer vowel phonemes occur before than in other positions of a word.
Overview
In rhotic dialects, is pronounced in most cases. In General American English (GA), is pronounced as an approximant or in most positions, but after some vowels, it is pronounced as r-coloring. In Scottish English, is traditionally pronounced as a flap or trill , and there are no r-colored vowels.
In non-rhotic dialects like Received Pronunciation (RP), historic is elided at the end of a syllable, and if the preceding vowel is stressed, it undergoes compensatory lengthening or breaking (diphthongization). Thus, words that historically had often have long vowels or centering diphthongs ending in a schwa , or a diphthong followed by a schwa. earth: GA , RP here: GA , RP fire: GA , RP
In most English dialects, there are vowel shifts that affect only vowels before or vowels that were historically followed by . Vowel shifts before historical fall into two categories: mergers and splits. Mergers are more common, so most English dialects have fewer vowel distinctions before historical than in other positions of a word.
In many North American dialects, there are ten or eleven stressed monophthongs; only five or six vowel (rarely seven) contrasts are possible before a preconsonantal and word-final (beer, bear, burr, bar, bore, bor, boor). Often, more contrasts exist if appears between vowels of different syllables. In some American dialects and in most native English dialects outside North America, for example, mirror and nearer do not rhyme, and some or all of marry, merry, and Mary are pronounced distinctly. (In North America, those distinctions are most likely to occur in New York City, Philadelphia, some of Eastern New England (including Boston), and in conservative Southern accents.) In many dialects, however, the number of contrasts in that position tends to be reduced, and the tendency seems to be towards further reduction. The difference in how the reductions have been manifested represents one of the greatest sources of cross-dialect variation.
Non-rhotic accents in many cases show mergers in the same positions as rhotic accents even though there is often no phoneme present. That results partly from mergers that occurred before the was lost and partly from later mergers of the centering diphthongs and long vowels that resulted from the loss of .
The phenomenon that occurs in many dialects of the United States is one of tense–lax neutralization in which the normal English distinction between tense and lax vowels is eliminated.
In some cases, the quality of a vowel before is different from the quality of the vowel elsewhere. For example, in some dialects of American English, the quality of the vowel in more typically does not occur except before , and it is somewhere in between the vowels of maw and mow. It is similar to the vowel of the latter word but without the glide.
Different mergers occur in different dialects. Generally, these correlate to accents with rhotic vowels, as opposed to non-rhoticity (as in most of British English) or fully pronounced /r/ (as in Scottish English).
Mergers before intervocalic R Lax vowels Most North American English dialects merge the lax vowels with the tense vowels before , so "marry" and "merry" have the same vowel as "mare", "mirror" has the same vowel as "mere", "forest" has the same vowel as the stressed form of "for", and "hurry" has the same vowel as "stir" as well as that found in the second syllable of "letter". The mergers are typically resisted by non-rhotic North Americans and are largely absent in areas of the United States that are historically largely non-rhotic.
Hurry–furry merger
The hurry–furry merger occurs when the vowel before intervocalic is merged with . That is particularly a feature in many dialects of North American English but not New York City English, Mid-Atlantic American English, older Southern American English, some speakers of Eastern New England English, and speakers of Southeastern New England English. Speakers with the merger pronounce hurry to rhyme with furry and turret to rhyme with stirit.
To occur, the merger requires the mergers to be in full effect, which is the case in nearly all English dialects worldwide, particularly outside the British Isles. However, in Scotland, hurry is a perfect rhyme of furry , but also the mergers have never developed there, meaning that , and can all still exist before both intervocalic and coda ; thus, fur, fern, and fir have distinct vowels: .
Dialects in England, Wales, and most others outside North America maintain the distinction between both sounds, so hurry and furry do not rhyme. However, in dialects without the – split, hurry has an entirely different vowel: (in a number of those dialects, a – merger is in effect instead).
General American has a three-way merger between the first vowels in hurry and furry and the unstressed vowel in letters. In Received Pronunciation, all of them have different sounds (, and , respectively), and some minimal pairs exist between unstressed and , such as foreword vs. forward . In General American, they collapse to , but in phonemic transcription, they can still be differentiated as and to facilitate comparisons with other accents. General American also often lacks a proper opposition between and , which makes minimal pairs such as unorthodoxy and an orthodoxy variably homophonous as . See the strut–comma merger for more information.
In New Zealand English, there is a consistent contrast between hurry and furry, but the unstressed is lengthened to (phonetically ) in many positions, particularly in formal or slow speech and especially when it is spelled . Thus, boarded and bordered might be distinguished as and , which is homophonous in Australian English as and distinguished in Received Pronunciation as and , based on the length and the rounding of . The shift was caused by a complete phonemic merger of and , a weak vowel merger that was generalized to all environments.
hurry–furry merger homophones IPA currier courier demurrer (legal objection) demurrer (one who demurs) furrier (n.) Fourier furrier (adj.)
Mary–marry–merry merger
One notable merger of vowels before is the Mary–marry–merry merger, a merging of the vowels (as in the name Carrie or the word marry) and (as in Kerry or merry) with the historical (as in Cary or Mary) whenever they are realized before intervocalic . No contrast exists before a final or preconsonantal , where merged with and with (see mergers) centuries ago. The merger is fairly widespread and is complete or nearly complete in most varieties of North American English, but it is rare in other varieties of English. The following variants are common in North America: The full Mary–marry–merry merger (also known, in this context, as the three-way merger) is found throughout much of the United States (particularly the Western and Central United States) and in all of Canada except Montreal. This is found in about 57% of American English speakers, according to a 2003 dialect survey. The merger is highlighted in the song Merry Go 'Round, whose central wordplay revolves around "Mary", "marry", and "merry" having the exact same pronunciation in the singer's accent. No merger, also known as a three-way contrast, exists in North America primarily in the Northeastern United States and is most clearly documented in the accents of Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York City, Rhode Island, and Boston. In the Philadelphia accent, the three-way contrast is preserved, but merry tends to be merged with Murray (see merry–Murray merger). The three-way contrast is found in about 17% of American English speakers overall. The Mary–marry merger is found alone with 16% of American English speakers overall, with the highest concentration in New England, especially New Hampshire. The Mary–merry merger is found alone among 9% of American English speakers overall, concentrated in the American South, especially Louisiana where it is the most common variant, and the Southern part of the Mid-Atlantic region. It is also found among Anglophones in Montreal. The merry–marry merger is found alone rarely, with about 1% of American English speakers.
In accents without the merger, Mary has the a sound of mare, marry has the "short a" sound of mat, and merry has the "short e" sound of met. In Standard Southern British, they are pronounced as , , and ; in Australian English, as , , and ; in New York City English, as , , and ; and in Philadelphia English, the same as New York City except merry is . There is plenty of variance in the distribution of the merger, with expatriate communities of those speakers being formed all over the country.
The Mary–merry merger is possible in New Zealand, and the quality of the merged vowel is then (similar to in General American). However, in New Zealand, the vowel in Mary often merges with the vowel instead (see near–square merger), which before intervocalic may then merge with , so Mary (phonemically ) can be or instead. In all of those cases, marry (with the vowel) is clearly distinguished from Mary and merry (regardless of how both are pronounced).
A similar pronunciation to the resultant merged vowel occurs in :/æ/ raising (albeit in a non-rhotic environment).
Mary–marry–merry merger homophones IPA Notes Aaron Erin with weak-vowel merger apparel - a peril with weak-vowel merger arable airable errable - airer error barrel - beryl with weak-vowel merger before barrier - burier Barry - berry Barry - bury Carrie Cary Kerry carry Cary Kerry - chary cherry - dairy Derry - fairy ferry Farrell - feral with weak-vowel merger before farrier - ferrier farrow Faroe‡ - farrow pharaoh‡ - harrowing - heroin with G-dropping harrowing - heroine with G-dropping Harry hairy - - haring herring Harold - herald marry Mary merry parish - perish parry - Perry - scary skerry - Tara‡ Terra tarrier - terrier tarry - Terry - tearable terrible with weak-vowel merger before - tearer terror - vary‡ very - wary wherry with wine–whine merger‡In a New York accent, many of the words spelled with ⟨ar⟩ use .
Merry–Murray merger The merry–Murray merger, also known as the furry–ferry merger, is a merger of and before , with the resulting vowel being . It is common in the Philadelphia accent, which does not usually have the marry–merry merger; its "short a" , as in marry and its SQUARE vowel remain distinct unmerged classes before . Therefore, merry and Murray are both pronounced as , but marry and Mary are distinct from this merged pair (and each other). merry–Murray merger homophones IPA Notes ferrier furrier (n.) Kerry curry merry Murray skerry scurry
Mirror–nearer and mergers The mergers of and (as in mirror and nearer, or Sirius and serious, respectively) and occur in North American English as a part of pre- laxing, together with the Mary–merry and horse–hoarse mergers. The phonetic outcome of the first merger is either a lax vowel , or a somewhat raised vowel that approaches the monophthongal allophone of : , often diphthongal as . In the case of the merger, it tends to approach the monophthongal variant of : .
The mirror–nearer merger is absent from traditional, local, or non-standard accents of the Southern and Eastern United States, where nearer is pronounced with a tense monophthong or a centering diphthong (phonemicized as or , depending on whether the accent is rhotic or not), whereas mirror has a lax monophthong .