Reading 2

Wells: sets and systems

Vowel system of RP; Wells 119

Vowel system of GenAm; Wells 120

RPWells 120

GenAmWells 121-2

p.125

p.127

p.131-2

Importance of lexical sets for vowels

• In Phonetics (Hljóð og Orð) in the first year we equated the KEYWORD of the lexical set with the vowel.

• cranberry pie

TRAP DRESS PRICE

commA (“Schwa”)

Importance of lexical sets for vowels

• These keywords for lexical sets were first developed by Wells in his Accents of English (1982)

• They are conceived in a slightly different way from our use of them in 1st year Phonetics

• They now refer not to fixed vowels, but to sets of words which may have different vowels in different accents.

Importance of lexical sets for vowels

• Father started walking along the path

PALM START THOUGHT LOT BATH

Importance of lexical sets for vowels

• A lexical set is a set of words which regularly has the same vowel-sound in a single accent. (TRAP in S. England)

• If the same set exists in another accent, it may have a different vowel. (TRAP in N. England, TRAP in N. America)

• Sets may differ between accents. “Parent” is a SQUARE word in Britain, but a TRAP word in N.America

Importance of lexical sets for vowels

• There may be different ways of looking at (or analysing) the same data:

• We could say that, in the N. of England, the STRUT words all had the same vowel as the FOOT words –

• or that there is no set of STRUT words in the N. of England – they all belong to the FOOT set.