Lexical set

Template:Short description Template:IPA notice A lexical set is a group of words that share a particular vowel or consonant sound.

A phoneme is a basic unit of sound in a language that can distinguish one word from another. Most commonly, following the work of phonetician John C. Wells, a lexical set is a class of words in a language that share a certain vowel phoneme. As Wells himself says, lexical sets "enable one to refer concisely to large groups of words which tend to share the same vowel, and to the vowel which they share".Template:Sfnp For instance, the pronunciation of the vowel in cup, luck, sun, blood, glove, and tough may vary in different English dialects but is usually consistent within each dialect and so the category of words forms a lexical set, which Wells, for ease, calls the Template:Sc2 set. Meanwhile, words like bid, cliff, limb, miss, etc. form a separate lexical set: Wells's Template:Sc2 set. Originally, Wells developed 24 such labels—keywords—for the vowel lexical sets of English, which have been sometimes modified and expanded by himself or other scholars for various reasons. Lexical sets have also been used to describe the vowels of other languages, such as French, Irish and Scots.

There are several reasons why lexical sets are useful. Scholars of phonetics often use abstract symbols (most universally today, those of the International Phonetic Alphabet) to transcribe phonemes, but they may follow different transcribing conventions or rely on implicit assumptions in their exact choice of symbols. One convenience of lexical sets is their tendency to avoid these conventions or assumptions. Instead, Wells explains, they "make use of keywords intended to be unmistakable no matter what accent one says them in".Template:Sfnp That makes them useful for examining phonemes within an accent, comparing and contrasting different accents, and capturing how phonemes may be differently distributed based on accent. A further benefit is that people with no background in phonetics can identify a phoneme not by learned symbols or technical jargon but by its simple keyword (like Template:Sc2 or Template:Sc2 in the above examples).

Standard lexical sets for English

The standard lexical sets for English introduced by John C. Wells in his 1982 Accents of English are in wide usage. Wells defined each lexical set on the basis of the pronunciation of words in two reference accents, which he calls RP and GenAm.Template:Sfnp

• "RP" refers to Received Pronunciation, the traditionally prestigious accent in England.Template:Sfnp
• "GenAm" refers to an accent of the General American type, which is associated with a geographically "neutral" or widespread sound system throughout the US.Template:Sfnp

Wells classifies English words into 24 lexical sets on the basis of the pronunciation of the vowel of their stressed syllable in the two reference accents. Typed in small caps, each lexical set is named after a representative keyword.Template:Sfnp Wells also describes three sets of words based on word-final unstressed vowels, which, though not included in the standard 24 lexical sets (the final three sets listed in the chart below) "have indexical and diagnostic value in distinguishing accents".Template:Sfnp

Lexical sets, as defined in Template:Harvp

Keyword	RP	GA	Example words
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	ship, sick, bridge, milk, myth, busy
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	step, neck, edge, shelf, friend, ready
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	tap, back, badge, scalp, hand, cancel
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	stop, sock, dodge, romp, possible, quality
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	cup, suck, budge, pulse, trunk, blood
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	put, bush, full, good, look, wolf
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	staff, brass, ask, dance, sample, calf
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	cough, broth, cross, long, Boston
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	hurt, lurk, urge, burst, jerk, term
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	creep, speak, leave, feel, key, people
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	tape, cake, raid, veil, steak, day
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	psalm, father, bra, spa, lager
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	taught, sauce, hawk, jaw, broad
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	soap, joke, home, know, so, roll
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	loop, shoot, tomb, mute, huge, view
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	ripe, write, arrive, high, try, buy
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	adroit, noise, join, toy, royal
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	out, house, loud, count, crowd, cow
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	beer, sincere, fear, beard, serum
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	care, fair, pear, where, scarce, vary
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	far, sharp, bark, carve, farm, heart
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	for, war, short, scorch, born, warm
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	four, wore, sport, porch, borne, story
Template:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	poor, tourist, pure, plural, jury
happTemplate:Sc2	Template:Hs	Template:Hs	copy, scampi, taxi, sortie, committee, hockey, Chelsea
lettTemplate:Sc2			paper, metre, calendar, stupor, succo(u)r, martyr
commTemplate:Sc2			about, gallop, oblige, quota, vodka

For example, the word rod is pronounced in RP and in GenAm. It therefore belongs in the Template:Sc2 lexical set. Weary is pronounced in RP and in GenAm and thus belongs in the Template:Sc2 lexical set.

Some English words do not belong to any lexical set. For example, the a in the stressed syllable of tomato is pronounced in RP, and in GenAm, a combination that is very unusual and is not covered by any of the 27 lexical sets above.Template:Sfnp Some words pronounced with before a velar consonant in RP, such as mock and fog, belong to no particular lexical set because the GenAm pronunciation varies between and .Template:Sfnp

The GenAm Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, and Template:Sc2 range between monophthongal and diphthongal , and Wells chose to phonemicize three of them as monophthongs for the sake of simplicity and Template:Sc2 as to avoid confusion with RP Template:Sc2, .Template:Sfnp

The happTemplate:Sc2 set was identified phonemically as the same as Template:Sc2 for both RP and GenAm, reflecting the then-traditional analysis, although realizations similar to Template:Sc2 (happy tensing) were already taking hold in both varieties.Template:Sfnp The notation Template:Angbr IPA for happTemplate:Sc2 has since emerged and been taken up by major pronouncing dictionaries, including Wells's, to take note of this shift.Template:Sfnp Wells's model of General American is also conservative in that it lacks the cot–caught (Template:Sc2–Template:Sc2) and horse–hoarse (Template:Sc2–Template:Sc2) mergers.Template:Sfnp

Choice of the keywords

Wells explains his choice of keywords ("kit", "fleece", etc.) as follows:

The keywords have been chosen in such a way that clarity is maximized: whatever accent of English they are spoken in, they can hardly be mistaken for other words. Although fleece is not the commonest of words, it cannot be mistaken for a word with some other vowel; whereas beat, say, if we had chosen it instead, would have been subject to the drawback that one man's pronunciation of beat may sound like another's pronunciation of bait or bit.Template:Sfnp

Wherever possible, the keywords end in a voiceless alveolar or dental consonant.Template:Sfnp

Usage

The standard lexical sets of Wells are widely used to discuss the phonological and phonetic systems of different accents of English in a clear and concise manner. Although based solely on RP and GenAm, the standard lexical sets have proven useful in describing many other accents of English. This is true because, in many dialects, the words in all or most of the sets are pronounced with similar or identical stressed vowels. Wells himself uses the Lexical Sets most prominently to give "tables of lexical incidence" for all the various accents he discusses in his work. For example, here is the table of lexical incidence he gives for Newfoundland English:Template:Sfnp

• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• Template:Sc2:
• happTemplate:Sc2:
• lettTemplate:Sc2:
• commTemplate:Sc2:

The table indicates that, for example, Newfoundland English uses the phoneme for words in the Template:Sc2 lexical set, and that the Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2 sets are all pronounced with the same vowel . Note that some lexical sets, such as Template:Sc2, are given with more than one pronunciation, which indicates that not all words in the Template:Sc2 lexical set are pronounced similarly (in this case, Newfoundland English has not fully undergone the pane–pain merger). is a back vowel Template:IPAblink; Wells uses the symbol Template:Angbr IPA so that the reader does not confuse it with the Template:Sc2 vowel (which, in the case of many other accents, he writes with Template:Angbr IPA or Template:Angbr IPA).Template:Sfnp

Wells also uses the standard lexical sets to refer to "the vowel sound used for the standard lexical set in question in the accent under discussion":Template:Sfnp Thus, for example, in describing the Newfoundland accent, Wells writes that "Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2 are reportedly often merged as ",Template:Sfnp meaning that the stressed syllables of words in the Template:Sc2 lexical set and words in the Template:Sc2 lexical set are reportedly often pronounced identically with the vowel .

Lexical sets may also be used to describe splits and mergers. For example, RP, along with most other non-rhotic accents, pronounces words such as "father" and "farther" identically. This can be described more economically as the merger of the Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2 lexical sets. Most North American accents make "father" rhyme with "bother". This can be described as the merger of the Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2 lexical sets.

Origin

In a 2010 blog post, Wells wrote:

He also wrote that he claimed no copyright in the standard lexical sets, and that everyone was "free to make whatever use of them they wish".

Extensions

Some varieties of English make distinctions in stressed vowels that are not captured by the 24 lexical sets. For example, some Irish and Scottish accents that have not undergone the fern–fir–fur merger split the Template:Sc2 lexical set into multiple subsets. For such accents, the 24 Wells lexical sets may be inadequate. Because of this, a work devoted to Irish English may split the Wells Template:Sc2 set into two subsets, a new, smaller Template:Sc2 set and a Template:Sc2 set.

Some writers on English accents have introduced a Template:Sc2 set to refer to a set of words that have the Template:Sc2 vowel in standard accents but may have a different vowel in Sheffield or in south-east London. Wells has stated that he didn't include a Template:Sc2 set because this should be interpreted as an allophone of Template:Sc2 that is sensitive to the morpheme boundary, which he illustrates by comparing the London pronunciations of goalie and slowly.

Template:Harvcoltxt, which documents the phonologies of varieties of English around the world like Template:Harvcoltxt, employs Wells's standard lexical sets as well as the following supplementary lexical sets, as needed to illustrate finer details of the variety under discussion:Template:Sfnp

• Template:Sc2, discussed above
• horsTemplate:Sc2, officTemplate:Sc2s, paintTemplate:Sc2d and villTemplate:Sc2ge, all referring to the unstressed allophone of Template:Sc2 that is subject to the weak vowel merger
• Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2, for the allophones of Template:Sc2 (Template:Sc2 in non-rhotic dialects), Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2 before intervocalic , commonly subject to Mary–marry–merry merger in North American English
• Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2, for the allophones of Template:Sc2 and Template:Sc2 before intervocalic , commonly subject to mirror–nearer merger in North American English
• treacTemplate:Sc2 and uncTemplate:Sc2, both referring to the vocalized
• Other supplementary lexical sets include:

Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, metTemplate:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, carrTemplate:Sc2, cordTemplate:Sc2, cTemplate:Sc2rious, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2bout, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2, Template:Sc2

• There is also the Template:Sc2 set, which is the same as Wells's Template:Sc2.

Adaptation for Anglo-Welsh dialects

In his work for the Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects, David Parry adapted Wells's lexical sets for Anglo-Welsh dialects.

Lexical sets, as defined in Template:Harvp.

Keyword	Example words
Template:Sc2	bitch, bridge, finger, shilling, squirrel, thimble, whip, with
Template:Sc2	buried, deaf, kettle, second, twelve, yellow
Template:Sc2	apples, hand, ladder, lamb, man, rabbits, rat, saddle, that, thatch
Template:Sc2	butter, furrow, jump, none, nothing, one, onions, suck, uncle
Template:Sc2	cross, dog, fox, holly, off, porridge, quarry, trough, wash, wasps, wrong
Template:Sc2	bull, butcher, foot, put, sugar, woman, wool
Template:Sc2	cheese, geese, grease, key, pea, sheaf, sheep, weasel, weeds, wheel, yeast
Template:Sc2	bacon, break, clay, drain, gate, lay (verb), potatoes, spade, tail, take, waistcoat, weigh
Template:Sc2	first, heard, third, work (noun)
Template:Sc2	chair, hare, mare, pears
Template:Sc2	arm, branch, calf, chaff, draught, farmer, farthing, grass
Template:Sc2	forks, morning, saw-dust, slaughter-house, straw, walk
Template:Sc2	coal, cold, colt, comb, foal, oak, old, road, sholder, snow, spokes, toad, yolk
Template:Sc2	dew, ewe, goose, hoof, root, stool, tooth, Tuesday, two
Template:Sc2	eye, fight, flies (noun, plural), hive, ivy, mice, white
Template:Sc2	boiling, oil, voice
Template:Sc2	cow, plough, snout, sow (noun), thousand
Template:Sc2	ears, hear, year
Template:Sc2	boar, door, four
Template:Sc2	fire, iron
Template:Sc2	flour, hour

See also

• Diaphoneme
• Homophone
• Minimal pair

Bibliography

• Template:Accents of English

External links

• Nicole Taylor (with the collaboration of Norma Mendoza-Denton [1]), The University of Arizona, Anthropology 383, Standard Lexical Sets, 2002 (in Archive.is)
• University of Pennsylvania, Linguistics 001, Lecture 9: Pronunciation of English