Phonology
Phonology of Gulf Southern and South Midland Dialects
- The diphthong /aɪ/ becomes monophthongized to[aː]:
- Most speakers exhibit this feature at the ends of words and before voiced consonants but not before voiceless consonants; some in fact exhibit Canadian-style raising before voiceless consonants, so that ride is [raːd]and wide is [waːd], but right is [rəɪt] and whiteis [ʍəɪt]. Many speakers throughout the South exhibit backing to [ɑːe] in environments where monophthongization does not take place.[9]
- Others monophthongize /aɪ/ in all contexts, as in the stereotyped pronunciation "nahs whaht rahs" for nice white rice; these speakers are mostly found in an Appalachian area that includes eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina and Northern Alabama (the "Inland South"), as well as in Central Texas.[10] Elsewhere in the South, this pronunciation is stigmatized as a working class feature.[citation needed]
- The "Southern Drawl", breaking of the short front vowels in the words "pat", "pet", and "pit": these develop a glide up from their original starting position to IPA| [j] , and then in some cases back down to schwa: /æ/ → [æjə]; /ɛ/ → [ɛjə]; /ɪ/ → [ɪjə].
- The "Southern Shift", a chain shift following on as a result of the Southern Drawl: the nuclei of /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ move to become higher and fronter, so that, for example, instead of [ɛjə], /ɛ/ becomes a tenser /ejə/. This process is most common in heavily stressed syllables. At the same time, the nuclei of the traditional front upgliding diphthongs are relaxed: /i/ moves towards [ɪi] and /eɪ/ moves towards [ɛi] or even lower and/or more retracted.
- The back vowels /u/ in boon and /oʊ/ in code shift considerably forward.
- The distinction between the vowels sounds of words like caught and cot or stalk and stock is mainly preserved. In much of the South, the vowel found in words like stalk and caught has developed into a diphthong [ɑɒ].
- The nucleus of /ɑr/ card is often rounded to [ɒr].
- /z/ becomes [d] before /n/, for example [wʌdn̩t] wasn't, [bɪdnɪs] business,[11] but hasn't is sometimes still pronounced [hæzənt] because there already exists a word hadn't pronounced [hædənt].
- Many nouns are stressed on the first syllable that would be stressed on the second syllable in other accents. These include police, cement,Detroit, Thanksgiving, insurance, behind, display, recycle, TV, guitar, and umbrella.
- The distinction between /ɜr/ and /ʌr/ in furry and hurry is preserved.In some regions of the south, there is a merger of [ɔr] and [ɑr], making cord and card, for and far, form and farm etc. homonyms.
- The distinction between /ɪr/ and /ɪər/ in mirror and nearer, Sirius and serious etc. is not preserved.
- The distinction between /ʊər/ and /ɔr/ in poor and pour, moor and more is not preserved.
- The l's in the words walk and talk are occasionally pronounced, causing the words talk and walk to be pronounced /wɑlk/ and /tɑlk/ by some Southerners.