English-language vowel changes before historic /l/

Template:Short description Template:English phonology topics Template:IPA notice In the history of English phonology, there have been many diachronic sound changes affecting vowels, especially involving phonemic splits and mergers. A number of these changes are specific to vowels which occur before , especially in cases where the is at the end of a syllable (or is not followed by a vowel).

Historical diphthongization before /l/

Template:More citations needed section Diphthongization occurred since Early Modern English in certain -al- and -ol- sequences before coronal or velar consonants, or at the end of a word or morpheme. In these sequences, became and then , while became and then . Both of these merged with existing diphthongs: as in law and as in throw.

At the end of a word or morpheme, this produced in all, ball, call, fall, gall, hall, mall, small, squall, stall, pall, tall, thrall and wall; in control, droll, extol, knoll, poll (meaning a survey of people,) roll, scroll, stroll, swollen, toll, and troll. The word shall did not follow this trend, and remains today.

Before coronal consonants, this produced in Alderney, alter, bald, balderdash, false, falter, halt, malt, palsy, salt, Wald and Walter; in bold, cold, fold, gold, hold, molten, mould/mold, old, shoulder (earlier sholder), smolder, told, and wold (in the sense of "tract of land"). As with shall, the word shalt did not follow this trend, and remains today.

Before , this produced in balk, caulk/calk, chalk, Dundalk, falcon, stalk, talk and walk; in folk, Polk, and yolk.

This L-vocalization established a pattern that would influence the spelling pronunciations of some relatively more recent loanwords like Balt, Malta, waltz, Yalta, and polder. It also influenced English spelling reform efforts, explaining the American English mold and molt vs. the traditional mould and moult.

Certain words of more recent origin or coining, however, do not have the change and retain short vowels, including Al, alcohol, bal, Cal, calcium, gal, Hal, mal-, pal, Sal, talc, Val, doll, Moll, and Poll (a nickname for a parrot.)

The Great Vowel Shift altered the pronunciation of the diphthongs, with becoming the monophthong , and raising to .

Historical L-vocalization

In -alk and -olk words, the subsequently disappeared entirely in most accents (with the notable exception of Hiberno-English). This change caused to become , and to become . Even outside Ireland, some of these words have more than one pronunciation that retains the sound, especially in American English where spelling pronunciations caused partial or full reversal of L-vocalization in a handful of cases:

• caulk/calk can be or .
• falcon can be , or .
• yolk can be or . yoke as is only conditionally homophonous.

Words like fault and vault did not undergo L-vocalization, but rather L-restoration, having previously been L-vocalized independently in Old French and lacking the in Middle English, but having it restored by Early Modern English. The word falcon existed simultaneously as homonyms and falcon in Middle English. The word moult/molt never originally had to begin with, instead deriving from Middle English mout and related etymologically to mutate; the joined the word intrusively.

The loss of in words spelt with -alf, -alm, -alve and -olm did not involve L-vocalization in the same sense, but rather the elision of the consonant and usually the compensatory lengthening of the vowel.

Variation between /ɔːl/ and /ɒl/ before a consonant in salt and similar words

Some words such as salt, traditionally pronounced by most RP speakers with /ɔːl/ followed by a consonant, have alternative pronunciations with /ɒl/ that are used more frequently by younger British English speakers. This variation between /ɔːl/ and /ɒl/ occurs primarily before voiceless consonants, as in salt, false and alter; less commonly, /ɒl/ may also be used in words where the /l/ comes before a voiced consonant, as in bald, scald and cauldron. In Great Britain, the /ɒl/ pronunciation was traditionally associated with Northern England and Wales, but has in recent decades become more widespread, including among younger speakers of RP.

Modern L-vocalization

More extensive L-vocalization is a notable feature of certain dialects of English, including Cockney, Estuary English, New York English, New Zealand English, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia English, in which an sound occurring at the end of a word or before a consonant is pronounced as some sort of close back vocoid, e.g., , or . The resulting sound may not always be rounded. The precise phonetic quality varies. It can be heard occasionally in the dialect of the English East Midlands, where words ending in -old can be pronounced . KM Petyt (1985) noted this feature in the traditional dialect of West Yorkshire but said it has died out. However, in recent decades l-vocalization has been spreading outwards from London and the south east, John C. Wells (1982) argued that it was probable that it would become the standard pronunciation in England over the next one hundred years,Template:Sfnp an idea which Petyt criticised in a book review.

In Cockney, Estuary English and New Zealand English, l-vocalization can be accompanied by phonemic mergers of vowels before the vocalized , so that real, reel and rill, which are distinct in most dialects of English, are homophones as .

Graham Shorrocks noted extensive L-vocalisation in the dialect of Bolton, Greater Manchester and commented, "many, perhaps, associate such a quality more with Southern dialects, than with Lancashire/Greater Manchester."

In the accent of Bristol, syllabic can be vocalized to , resulting in pronunciations like (for bottle). By hypercorrection, however, some words originally ending in were given an : the original name of the town was Bristow, but this has been altered by hypercorrection to Bristol.

African-American English (AAE) dialects may have L-vocalization as well. However, in these dialects, it may be omitted altogether (e.g. fool becomes . Some English speakers from San Francisco – particularly those of Asian ancestry – also vocalize or omit .

Salary–celery merger

The salary–celery merger is a conditioned merger of (as in bat) and (as in bet) when they occur before , thus making salary and celery homophones. The merger is not well studied. It is referred to in various sociolinguistic publications, but usually only as a small section of the larger change undergone by vowels preceding in articles about l-vocalization.

This merger has been detected in the English spoken in New Zealand and in parts of the Australian state of Victoria, including the capital Melbourne. The merger is also found in the Norfuk dialect spoken on Norfolk Island. The salary-celery merger is also characteristic of Chicano English in Los Angeles and has been attested in the Chicano English of northern New Mexico and Albuquerque as well. is also often lowered before in El Paso, but not all speakers show a merger. In varieties with the merger, salary and celery are both pronounced .

The study presented by Cox and Palethorpe at a 2003 conference tested just one group of speakers from Victoria: 13 fifteen-year-old girls from a Catholic girls' school in Wangaratta. Their pronunciations were compared with those of school girl groups in the towns of Temora, Junee and Wagga Wagga in New South Wales. In the study conducted by Cox and Palethorpe, the group in Wangaratta exhibited the merger while speakers in Temora, Junee and Wagga Wagga did not.

Deborah Loakes from Melbourne University has suggested that the salary-celery merger is restricted to Melbourne and southern Victoria, not being found in northern border towns such as Albury-Wodonga or Mildura.

In the 2003 study Cox and Palethorpe note that the merger appears to only involve lowering of /e/ before /l/, with the reverse not occurring, stating that "There is no evidence in this data of raised /æ/ before /l/ as in 'Elbert' for 'Albert', a phenomenon that has been popularly suggested for Victorians."

Template:Harvp investigates the effects of postvocalic on the preceding vowels in New Zealand English; her investigation covers all of the New Zealand English vowels and is not specifically tailored to studying mergers and neutralizations, but rather the broader change that occurs across the vowels. She has suggested that further research involving minimal pairs like telly and tally, celery and salary should be done before any firm conclusions are drawn.

A pilot study of the merger was done, which yielded perception and production data from a few New Zealand speakers. The results of the pilot survey suggested that although the merger was not found in the speech of all participants, those who produced a distinction between and also accurately perceived a difference between them; those who merged and were less able to accurately perceive the distinction. The finding has been interesting to some linguists because it concurs with the recent understanding that losing a distinction between two sounds involves losing the ability to produce it as well as to perceive it (Gordon 2002). However, due to the very small number of people participating in the study the results are not conclusive.

Homophonous pairs

		IPA	Notes
Allan	Ellen
bally	belly
dally	Delhi
dally	deli
fallow	fellow
Hal	hell
mallow	mellow
Sal	cel
Sal	cell
Sal	sell
salary	celery
shall	shell

Fill–feel merger

File:Il-iyl.svg

The areas marked in red are where the fill–feel merger is most consistently present in the local accent. Map based on Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 71).

The fill–feel merger is a conditioned merger of the vowels and before that occurs in some accents. In Europe, it is commonly found in Estuary English. Otherwise it is typical of certain accents of American English. The heaviest concentration of the merger is found in, but not necessarily confined to, Southern American English: in North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, northern Alabama, Mississippi, northern and central Louisiana (but not New Orleans), and west-central Texas (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006: 69-73). This merger, like many other features of Southern American English, can also be found in AAE.

Homophonous pairs

		IPA	Notes
dill	deal
fill	feel
filled	field
hill	heal
hill	heel
hill	he'll
ill	eel
Jill	geal
kill	keel
lil	leal
lil	Lille
mill	meal
nil	kneel
nil	Neil
Phil	feel
pill	peal
pill	peel
rill	real
rill	reel
shill	she'll
shilled	shield
sill	ceil
sill	seal
silly	Seely
spill	spiel		When spiel is not pronounced with initial /ʃ-/
still	steal
still	steel
till	teal
will	we'll
will	wheel		With wine-whine merger.
willed	wield

Fell–fail merger

The same two regions show a closely related merger, namely the fell–fail merger of and before that occurs in some varieties of Southern American English making fell and fail homophones. In addition to North Carolina and Texas, these mergers are found sporadically in other Southern states and in the Midwest and West.

Homophonous pairs

		IPA	Notes
bell	bail
bell	bale
belle	bail
belle	bale
cell, cel	sail
cell, cel	sale
dell	dale
ell	ail
ell	ale
fell	fail
gel	gaol, jail
geld	galed
held	hailed
hell	hail
hell	hale
knell	nail
L, ell	ail
L, ell	ale
Mel	mail
Mel	male
meld	mailed
Nell	nail
quell	quail
sell	sail
sell	sale
shell	shale
swell	swale
tell	tail
tell	tale
weld	wailed
well	wail
well	wale
wells	wales
wells	Wales
well	whale		With wine-whine merger.
wells	wails
wells	whales		With wine-whine merger.
yell	Yale

Full–fool merger

The full–fool merger is a conditioned merger of and before , making pairs like pull/pool and full/fool homophones. The main concentration of the pull–pool merger is in Western Pennsylvania English, centered around Pittsburgh. The merger is less consistently but still noticeably present in some speakers of surrounding Midland American English. The Atlas of North American English also reports this merger, or near-merger, scattered sporadically throughout Western American English, with particular prevalence in some speakers of urban Utahn, Californian, and New Mexican English. Accents with L-vocalization, such as New Zealand English, Estuary English and Cockney, may also have the full–fool merger in most cases, but when a suffix beginning with a vowel is appended, the distinction returns: Hence 'pull' and 'pool' are , but 'pulling' is whereas 'pooling' remains .

The fill–feel merger and full–fool merger are not unified in American English; they are found in different parts of the country, and very few people show both mergers.

Homophonous pairs

		IPA (using Template:Angbr IPA for the merged vowel)
bull	boule
full	fool
pull	pool

Hull–hole merger

The hull–hole merger is a conditioned merger of and before occurring for some speakers of English English with l-vocalization. As a result, "hull" and "hole" are homophones as . The merger is also mentioned by Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 72) as a merger before in North American English that might require further study. The latter merger can also involve or before .

Homophonous pairs

				IPA	Notes
adult	a dolt				Adult as Template:IPAc-en.
	bold	bulled
	bowl	bull
	bowled	bulled
culled	cold
cull	coal
cull	cole
cult	colt
dull	dole
	foal	full
	foaled	fulled
	fold	fulled
gull	goal
hull	hole
hull	whole
hulled	hold
hulled	holed
mull	mole
mulled	mold
mulled	mould
null	gnoll
null	knoll
	pole	pull
	poll	pull
	Seminole		seminal
skulled	scold
sull	sole
sull	soul
sulled	sold
sulled	soled
sulled	souled

Gulf-golf merger

The gulf-golf merger is the merger of the diaphonemes and before /lC/, where C denotes a consonant. It is attested in Australian English, in which it can co-occur with the Doll-dole merger. In Australian English the result of this 2-3 way merger is [ɔ], the vowel of Template:Sc2.

Homophonous pairs

		IPA (using Template:Angbr IPA for the merged vowel)	Notes
cult	colt		With the doll-dole merger
exult	exalt
gulf	golf

Doll–dole merger

The doll–dole merger is a conditioned merger for many Southern England English, Australian English and New Zealand English speakers, of and before syllable-final (or non-prevocalic) , resulting in homophony between pairs like doll and dole. The distinction between and is maintained in derived forms containing prevocalic , such as dlling herself up vs. dling it out, which means that the underlying vowel is recoverable if the is morpheme-final, as in doll and dole. But when the is followed by a consonant within the same morpheme, as in solve, the distinction is not recoverable; this may be the cause, via hypercorrection, of pronunciations such as for solve in place of RP .

Homophonous pairs

		IPA (using Template:Angbr IPA for the merged vowel)	Notes
Balt	bolt		When Balt is not pronounced as /bɔːlt/Template:Efn
doll	dole
halt	holt		When halt is not pronounced as /hɔːlt/Template:Efn
malt	moult		When malt is not pronounced as /mɔːlt/Template:Efn
moll	mole
paltry	poultry		When paltry is not pronounced as /pɔːltri/Template:Efn
poll	pole		Already homophonous in dialects that pronounce poll as /poʊl/Template:Efn
sol	sole
sol	soul
vol	vole
vault	volt		When vault is not pronounced as /vɔːlt/Template:Efn

Goat split

The goat split is a process that has affected London dialects, Australian English, and Estuary English. In the first phase of the split, the diphthong of goat developed an allophone before "dark" (nonprevocalic) . Thus goal no longer had the same vowel as goat ( vs. ). In the second phase, the diphthong spread to other forms of affected words. For example, the realization of rolling changed from to on the model of roll . This led to the creation of a minimal pair for some speakers: wholly vs. holy and thus to phonemicization of the split. The change from to in derived forms is not fully consistent; for instance, in cockney, polar is pronounced with the of goat even though it is derived from pole .

In broad Cockney, the phonetic difference between the two phonemes may be rather small and they may be distinguished by nothing more than the openness of the first element, so that goat is pronounced whereas goal is pronounced .

Goose split

Similar to the Goat split, the Goose vowel has developed contrasting phonetic outcomes before /l/ in some Southeastern English dialects, exhibited by the pair ruler (measuring instrument), pronounced with a fronter vowel that can be transcribed or , and ruler ('one who rules'), pronounced with a backer vowel that can be transcribed , or . This contrast developed from an allophonic distribution where a back variant of the goose vowel is used before tautosyllabic /l/, as in rule , but a fronted variant closer to is used elsewhere, as in ruler (instrument) .

This distribution has become complicated by morphology in a way that is leading to a phonemic split in words with pre-vocalic /l/: those where the /l/ is stem-final are pronounced with the phonetically back vowel (as in ruler (monarch), a morphologically transparent derivative of rule), whereas those where the /l/ is stem-medial are pronounced with a fronted vowel (as in ruler (measuring instrument), which is treated as an unanalyzable unit). The difference in vowel quality is presumably accompanied by a difference in the pronunciation of the following /l/ ([ɫ] after , [l] after ).

The Goose split has spread out from South East England due to media influence, sometimes merging with pre-existing high-back vowels in other dialects such as the [ʊw] diphthong present in the words go, don't, won't and a few others in the West Midlands (a holdover from a historic toe-tow distinction). In those areas, there is a more robust contrast between the usual Goose vowel (approximately [ɵɥ]) in words like goose and through, a high back vowel [ʊw] in ghoul and don't, and a third vowel arising from l-vocalisation in words like gull which is often realised as [ɤw], and they are all better analysed as separate lexical sets.

A similar backing change has occurred in many North American dialects, but this has remained allophonic. For example, in California English, the Goose vowel is realized as a back vowel in words such as school where it is followed by /l/, but is fronted in words where it is not followed by /l/, such as new.

Fool–fall merger

For some English speakers in the UK, the vowels of goose and thought may be merged before dark syllable-final due to the phonetically raised pronunciation of the thought vowel in southern England (rather than , the contemporary pronunciation of this vowel in Standard Southern British English is more accurately transcribed as or ) in combination with the backing of the goose vowel before as part of the Goose split. This neutralization has been found to exist for clusters of speakers in the southern UK, especially for speakers from areas of the south coast and the Greater London area.

Homophonous pairs

GOOSE	THOUGHT	IPA (using Template:Angbr IPA for the merged vowel)
boule	ball
boule	bawl
cool	call
cruel	crawl
drool	drawl
fool	fall
ghoul	gall
ghoul	Gaul
pool	pall
pool	Paul
schooled	scald
stool	stall
tool	tall
Yule	yawl

Vile–vial merger

Template:More citations needed section The vile–vial merger is where the words in the vile set ending with (bile, file, guile, I'll, Kyle, Lyle, mile, Nile, pile, rile, smile, stile, style, tile, vile, while, wile) rhyme with words in the vial set ending with (decrial, denial, dial, espial, Niall, phial, trial, vial, viol). This merger involves the dephonemicization of schwa that occurs after a vowel and before , causing the vowel- sequence to be pronounced as either one or two syllables.

This merger may also be encountered with other vowel rhymes too, including:

• (jail, sale, tail, etc.) and (betrayal, Jael), usually skewing towards two syllables.
• (coil, soil, etc.) and (loyal, royal), usually skewing towards two syllables.
• (ceil, feel, steal, etc.) and (real), usually skewing towards two syllables.
• (all, drawl, haul, etc.) and (withdrawal), usually skewing towards one syllable.
• (bowl, coal, hole, roll, soul, etc.) and (Joel, Noel), usually skewing towards one syllable.
• (cool, ghoul, mewl, rule, you'll, etc.) and (cruel, dual, duel, fuel, gruel, jewel), usually skewing towards one syllable.
• (owl, scowl, etc.) and (bowel, dowel, Powell, towel, trowel, vowel), inconsistently skewing towards either one or two syllables. Some words may wander across this boundary even in some non-merging accents, such as owl with , and bowel with .
• In some rhotic accents, (girl, hurl, pearl, etc.) and (referral), usually skewing towards two syllables. This historically happened to the word squirrel, which was previously (and still is in certain accents) but became one syllable in General American today. Some accents with one-syllable squirrel later broke it into two syllables again, as .
• In some rhotic father–bother merged accents, (Carl, marl, etc.) and (coral, moral), usually skewing towards two syllables.

For many speakers, the vowels in cake, meet, vote and moot can become centering diphthongs before , leading to pronunciations like , , and for tail, teal, toll and tool.

Homophonous pairs

/l/	/əl/	IPA	Notes
file	phial
howl	Howell
Joule	dual		with yod-coalescence
Joule	duel		with yod-coalescence
Joule	jewel
knoll	Noel
Nile	Niall
reel	real
Royle	royal
vile	vial

Merger of non-prevocalic , , , with morpheme-internal

Cockney features a THOUGHT-split whereby the (the Template:Sc2-Template:Sc2-Template:Sc2 vowel) is pronounced differently depending on its position in the syllable structure: in morpheme-internal checked syllables and in free syllables or morpheme-finally. Thus, paw () has a different vowel from pause (), so paws () and pause () become non-homophonous.

The L-vocalization of Cockney can lead to non-prevocalic /l/ being pronounced with a quality around , resulting in it being entirely absorbed by the preceding when it follows a (by definition, morpheme-internal checked syllable) Template:Sc2 vowel in words such as bald, call and Paul, leading to homophonous pairs such as bald and board (), called and cord (), Paul's and pause ().Template:Sfnp

Such homophones can only arise when the word without a historic /l/ also has the Template:Sc2-Template:Sc2-Template:Sc2 vowel in a morpheme-internal position, as in morpheme-final positions it will be pronounced as rather than , thus Paul's () and paws (), bald () and bored () etc remain distinct.

The full-fool and fool-fall mergers, both of which are common in Cockney, can cause and to also merge with morpheme-internal , leading to homophonous pairs such as wolf and wharf and cools and cause ; and pulls, pools, Paul's and pause all becoming homophonous as .Template:Sfnp

Non-prevocalic (as in bottle) can also merge with morpheme-interal , leading to musical being homophonous with music hall as . Cockney speakers usually regard both syllables of awful as rhyming: .Template:Sfnp

In the following list, the only homophonous pairs that are included are those involving a word with /l/ and a word without. As the merger is restricted to non-rhotic accents, morpheme-internal in the fifth column is assumed to cover not only Template:Sc2 but also Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2.

Potentially homophonous pairs

			Morpheme-internal	IPA (using for the merged vowel)	Notes
		Alt	ought		When alt is not pronounced
		assault	assort		When assault is not pronounced
		Balt	bought		When Balt is not pronounced
bulled		bald	board
		baldy	bawdy
bulled		balled	board
bulled		bawled	board
		brawled	broad
	coolled	called	cord
	cools	calls	cause
		false	force		When false is not pronounced
		fault	fort		When fault is not pronounced
		fault	fought		When fault is not pronounced
		fault	thought		With th-fronting, when fault is not pronounced .
		faulty	forty		When faulty is not pronounced
fulled	fooled		ford
		galled	gourd		With cure-force merger
		halls	Hawes
		hauls	Hawes
		hauled	hoard
		Malden	Morden
		malt	mort		When malt is not pronounced
		Malta	mortar		When malt is not pronounced
		mauled	Maud		When malt is not pronounced
pulls	pools	Paul's	pause
		salt	sort		When salt is not pronounced
		salt	sought		When salt is not pronounced
wolf			wharf
		Walt	wart		When Walt is not pronounced
		Walter	water		When Walter is not pronounced

Other mergers

Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006:73) mention four mergers before that may be under way in some accents of North American English, and which require more study:

• and (bull vs bowl)
• and (hull vs hall)
• and (bull vs hull) (effectively undoing the foot-strut split before )
• and (hull vs bowl)

See also

• Phonological history of English
• Phonological history of English vowels
• English-language vowel changes before historic r

Bibliography

• Template:Cite thesis