s - Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna we Wrocławiu

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Gabriela Brozbă
can be seen in Figure 1. Moreover, the mean values of their first formants (both
around 300 Hz) point to the fact that they are tense. Consequently, they have
merged into a single vocalic element which is shorter than the long RP counterpart
but the result of their merger retains the tense feature, characteristic of long
RP vowels. The FOOT and GOOSE pair behaves similarly: their duration is almost
identical and they are also a perfect match in terms of tenseness. GOOSE
appears to be a bit more fronted than FOOT but a look at the formant transitions
on the spectral band will show that it is the movement of the second formant
towards the higher frequencies of the subsequent fricative that raises the F2 of
GOOSE earlier than that in FOOT, thus altering its mean value in terms of backness.
The KIT, CLOTH, THOUGHT, NORTH and FORCE have merged into one
vowel, namely [ɔ]. Their proximity in the vowel chart attests to their similar
quality and the duration values (ranging between 127–153 milliseconds) in Table
1 also shows that they have more or less the same vowel for all the lexical
set items / words. The realizations of the vowels in STRUT, PALM and BATH are
close enough to each other for one to safely assume that they are similar in quality.
Even though the space between them is wider than in the case of the KIT /
FLEECE merger or the LOT / CLOTH / THOUGHT / NORTH / FORCE merger, the
difference is not so obvious as to become statistically significant. As can be
seen form the chart, the realizations are situated more in the area of [ʌ], rather
than other back low realizations such as [ɑ] or [ɒ]. The DRESS and TRAP vowels
are clearly very similar in terms of both quality and duration. The NURSE vowel,
which appears a bit further back in the spectrum, its first formant keeps it in the
area of the front open-mid central unrounded vowel [ɜ]. This can also be confirmed
by an auditory judgment of the recorded sample. Additionally, as can be
noticed in table 1, it is also the longest 6 vowel in the whole series of lexical set
items. The commA and lettER vowels merge for this female speaker, and they
are unanimously rendered as a schwa-like sound, judging by their position and
proximity in the spectrum. However, the vowel in the first syllable of the word
about is realized rather as a back low vowel and not like a schwa, as it usually
happens in non-native varieties of English (this will be discussed in more details
when the phenomenon of vowel reduction will be in focus). Finally, by looking
at the vowel system of this speaker, one can claim that we are clearly dealing
with an acrolectal user: the occurrence of vowels like [ʌ] or [ɜ], which Van
Rooy (2008) lists among the features of the acrolect certainly support this claim.
However, the length distinction, alongside the tenseness distinction is not preserved
in the sense discussed by Van Rooy (2008) for the acrolect, but rather for
the mesolect. This shows that the things are much more complicated that they
may seem and that it is actually quite hard to make a clear-cut distinction be-
6
It may be actually longer, but I made the cut so as to avoid including part of the preceding
nasal whose formant transitions may influence the formant onset of the vowel.