Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each accent feature by whether it is a MERGER or a SPLIT.
Groups: Merger · Split
- Foot and strut have different vowels in the south of England
- Put and putt are homophones in much of northern England
- Trap and bath have different vowels in southern British English
- Cot and caught have the same vowel in much of North America
Hints
- A merger means two phonemes have become one; a split means one has become two.
- Homophones are the signature of a merger.
Show the answer
Merger: Cot and caught have the same vowel in much of North America, Put and putt are homophones in much of northern England
Split: Trap and bath have different vowels in southern British English, Foot and strut have different vowels in the south of England
Why
The same historical event is described either way depending on which accent you take as the starting point, the foot–strut split in the south is the absence of a merger in the north. What matters is that both describe a change in the system, so a speaker with a merger cannot recover the distinction by trying harder.
Practise English Vowels I: the Quadrilateral
The app has 3 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Languages I is free to start.
More questions on English Vowels I: the Quadrilateral
- Why are vowels described by tongue position rather than by place of articulation?
- Phonetic vowel length depends on both lexical vowel category and the following consonant. What follows from…
- Daniel Jones's cardinal vowels are the vowels of Received Pronunciation.
- How many monophthongs does the standard analysis of Received Pronunciation recognise?
- Which are true of vowel length in English?
- Match each dimension of vowel description to what it specifies.
- Complete the description of the vowel space.
- Arrange these vowels from the highest tongue position to the lowest.
- The consonant inventories of English accents differ far less than their vowel inventories.