Naomi Nagy

Linguistics at U of T

Yankee Doodles in Dialectography: Updating New England
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Naomi Nagy and Julie Roberts

Research goals

Data collected by Linguistics 505 students at UNH

Data and results (as of Spring 1999)

We present dialect maps showing geographically-based variation for the following phonological variables:

  1. Low back merger (Do "father" and "bother" rhyme?)
  2. Post-alveolar palatalization (Do the first vowels in "Tuesday", "news", and "student" sound like the "oo" in "food" or the "u" in "use"?)
  3. Front vowel mergers before /r/ (Do "Mary" and "merry" sound the same?)

Regions examined

# surveys distributed

 

Breakdown of surveys analyzed here

   

#surveys distributed in 1998

600+

New Hampshire

violet

160

# surveys returned in 1998

595

Massachusetts

green

162

# surveys analyzed here

387

Vermont

blue

65

Post-alveolar palatalization

Do the first vowels in "Tuesday", "news", and "student" sound like the "oo" in "food" or the "u" in "use"?

Front vowel mergers before /r/

 
Please address questions or comments to Naomi Nagy.  This page was last updated 10/21/02.
email: naomi dot nagy at utoronto dot ca | Return to my home page