Home > Cot-caught merger

The sound change turns the vowel in cot ( IPA /ɑː/ in American English) and caught (IPA /ɔː/) into a single sound, usually close to /ɑː/, so that the two words become homophones. This sound change appears to have occurred at some time in the nineteenth century; it is regular in most of inland English-speaking North America, so that many areas continue to observe the distinction. Some varieties of North American English still have both the vowels [ɑː] and [ɔː], but [ɔː] is a conditioned variant of /oː/ or /ɑː/ that only occurs before certain sounds, particularly /r/ or /l/, and does not count as a separate phoneme.

Generally speaking, merger does not occur in the southern United States, or along the American side of the Great Lakes region. It occurs in most forms of Canadian English west of Quebec, northern New England north of Boston, MassachusettsAlternate meanings: Boston (disambiguation Old State House in Boston is surrounded by tall buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries. Boston is the capital and largest city in Massachusetts in the United States. It is the unofficial capital of the region k, and in the Ohio RiverThe Ohio River is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River, 981 mi (1,579 km) long in the eastern United States. Of great significance in the history of North America dating from the time of the Native Americans, the river was a primary transportati valley. West of the line formed by the borders of North DakotaNorth Dakota ( In Detail) ( In Detail) State nicknames: Peace Garden State ''Roughrider State ''Flickertail State Other U. States Capital Bismarck Largest City Fargo Governor John Hoeven Area Total Land Water % water Ranked 19th 183,272 km² 178,839 km² 4, down through OklahomaOklahoma ( In Detail) (Full size) State nickname: Sooner State Other U. States Capital Oklahoma City Largest City Oklahoma City Governor Brad Henry Area Total Land Water % water Ranked 20th 181,196 km² 178,023 km² 3,173 km² 1. 8% Population Total ( 2000) and in western TexasTexas joined the United States of America as its 28th member state in 1845. It has the postal abbreviation TX . The state name derives from a word in a Caddoan language of the Hasinai, tejas meaning friends or allies Spanish explorers mistakenly applied t, the merger is usual. See this map (external link) for details. The distribution of the merger is complex, even without taking into account the mobility of the American population; there are pockets of speakers with the merger in areas that lack it, and vice versa. There are areas where the merger has only partially occurred, or are in a state of transition. Two related phenomena have been identified as accompanying resistance to the merger are:

• The presence of the northern cities vowel shiftThe Northern cities vowel shift is a chain shift in the sounds of some vowels. It is called northern cities because it has taken place mostly in a broad swath of the United States, beginning near Syracuse, New York and extending west through Cleveland, Oh, a chainIn the study of phonetic changes, a chain shift is a type of sound shift in which a group of sounds all change at about the same time, with some sounds taking the place of others. Examples of sound shifts that have occurred in English are the Great Vowel sound change that affects the pronunciation of several back vowels; and
• The presence of certain features of southern American English, and specifically the use of various complex glides or diphthongIn phonetics, a diphthong is a vowel combination usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. While "pure" vowels, or monophthongs are said to have one target tization of the sound of /æ/ (as in cat). [1]

For those who have the merger, the two sounds [ɑː] and [ɔː] are allophones; they often do not perceive differences in their usage, hear neither of them as a separate phoneme, and hear the distinct vowels used by speakers whose dialects do distinguish them as variations on the same vowel. They hear the broad A of British English as the same, single vowel sound. But in British English, in particular in Received Pronunciation, there are three sounds distinguished: the long /ɑː/ of cart, the long /ɔː/ of caught, and the short rounded /ɒ/ of cot. The American cot-caught vowels have merged onto what the Briton hears as the vowel of cart.