Vowel mergers before "r" in eastern New England
Survey question | Results
Here's the question from the survey:
B. Different pronunciations: Please tell us whether the following words sound
the same or different...
|
3. Mary, merry |
[e]~[E] |
same |
diff |
|
7. merry, marry |
[E]~[a] |
same |
diff |
|
11. berry, Barry |
[E]~[a] |
same |
diff |
|
16. herald, Harold |
[E]~[a] |
same |
diff |
|
23. fairy, ferry |
[e]~[E] |
same |
diff |
People who indicate that the words in these pairs sound the same as each
other have a merger of the indicated vowels before /r/. About half of the NH
respondents have this merger.
Virtually none of the MA respondents do-- they indicate
that the words are not pronounced the same.
Results
Map showing 3 types of
merger by region
Graphs for each merger
comparing southern NH and MA. These graphs show the stark
difference between northeastern MA and southeastern NH, which are neighboring
regions.
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