LELA 10082
Lecture II
Describing accents II
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Differences between X and RP
1. Differences of phoneme system
Additional phoneme distinctions; “missing” phonemes
2. Differences of distribution
X and RP have equivalent phonemes, but the phonetic
contexts in which they occur differ
3. Differences of incidence
X and RP have equivalent phonemes, but in particular
words, a different phoneme is chosen
4. Differences of realisation
X and RP have equivalent phonemes, but the phonetic
and/or allophonic realisation differs
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3. Differences of incidence
• One phoneme rather than another in certain
words
– Systematic differences more interesting
– Some differences are more arbitrary
• Accents have both phonemes (or
equivalent)
• Difference can be defined in terms of
phonetic (or other) context/condition
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3. Differences of incidence
• Northern “flat A”
– Note “flat” is not a phonetic term: /a/~/A/ (front~back)
• Northern accents have /a/ rather than /A/ before
voiceless fricatives and consonant clusters
beginning with a nasal: laugh, path, pass, sample,
answer, aunt, branch, slander
– But some exceptions: pant, romance, mansion, band,
camp
• But /A/ when there’s an ‘r’ or ‘l’ in the spelling, or
before voiced fricatives: half, hearth, calm, farm,
parcel, father, camouflage, and a few other words
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3. Differences of incidence
(1) pat, bad, cap, can, gas,
land
(2) path, laugh, grass
(3) dance, grant, demand
(4) part, bar, cart
(5) half, palm, banana, can’t
How do you pronounce
these words?
• RP /a/ in (1), /A/ elsewhere
• Midlands, N England /a/
in (1)-(3)
• Scots, N Irish has only /a/
in all 5
• SW England contrast is
variable, but mostly have
long [a] (ie /A/?)
• All of the above subject to
exceptions
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Northern A
• Some words with /a/ look
like they should have /A/,
giving rise to
hypercorrection, and even
some variation in RP
– gas, salmon, graphic, lather,
transfer, plastic, elastic,
Elastoplast, gymnastic,
Atlantic, Gesellschaft (!)
• Realisation of /A/ varies in
Northern accents (more
later)
/a/ in path
/A/ in path
Contrast absent or in
doubt
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3. Differences of incidence
• Conservative RP has // rather than // before
voiceless fricative in off, lost, cloth
• Some Northern accents have /u/ rather than //
where there is ‘oo’ in spelling, eg look, book, cook
– Hypercorrection tooth /tT/
– System shift: luck~look~Luke /lk~luk~ljuk/
• Some Northern accents have // rather than
(expected) // where there is ‘o’ in spelling, eg
once, tongue, one, none, nothing, among
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4. Differences of realisation
• Especially in the vowel systems, many
accents have same number of phonemes,
used in the same words, but they differ
phonetically – often systematically
• Quite often we see the whole vowel system
“shifted round” in some way
• Example:
– RP and Brummie
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bee
boy
bay
RP
Brummie
bee
boy
bay
buy
buy
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4. Differences of realisation
• Tyneside “inverted diphthongs”
• Belfast similar
• Diphthongs appear as
monophthongs in several accents
RP Tyneside example
eI
o
u
a
– /eI/ = /e/ in Scots, /E/ in Lancs
– /ou/ = /o/ in Scots, // in Lancs
– etc.
• /A/ is long /a/ in Scouse: cat~cart
• Realisations sometimes make
systematicity more obvious
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4. Differences of realisation
• Scouse voiceless stops /p,t,k/ affricated, or even
realized as fricatives (esp. in word-final position,
and especially /t/):
– cup [kp,
kp, kxp, x]
( =
bilabial fricative)
– but [bts, bts, bs] so but = bus
– back [bakx, bax]
– echo [Exu]
• Stop phonemes in general characterized by lax
articulation, leading to affrication or replacement
by fricatives
– bread and butter [brEz n bsE]
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4. Differences of realisation
• Equivalent phonemes (sometimes called
“diaphone”)
• Particularly vowel phonemes, absolute differences
can be quite significant
• Experimental evidence shows that hearers can
adjust to the appropriate vowel system within a
few utterances …
• … even if the accent is unfamiliar
• This underlines the idea of systematicity
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4. Differences of realisation
u
/ou/ as in go
u, 
E,
ou

Eo
u
a
u
u
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Beyond phonemes
• Suprasegmentals
– Intonation
• Patterns
• Range
– Stress, Rhythm, Loudness
• Voice quality features
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Intonation
• Accents can differ in use of intonation patterns
• Patterns described in terms of start position (high, mid,
low) and direction (rise, fall, fall-rise, steady)
• Pattern differences, like phonemes, can be analysed as
follows
– (see Ladd DR 1996. Intonational Phonology. Cambridge:CUP)
–
–
–
–
Semantic differences (same tune, different meaning)
Systemic differences (same meaning carried by different tune)
Realisation differences
Phonotactic differences (intonation patterns combine in different
ways)
• Lots of work done on IViE corpus
– Multiple recordings of nine urban accents from around the British
Isles
– http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/IViE/
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Intonation
• Semantic differences: same tune different
meaning
• Systemic differences: same meaning
different tune
• Some overlap here: our example could be
either semantic or systemic
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Intonation: example
• Use of (mid) rise in declarative statements
• Most accents of English use low rise for yes/no questions
or requests for confirmation
– Did you go the party?
– Who was at the party?
• Same intonation when used with declarative statement
implies element of questioning, eg request for confirmation
– I come from Wigan (have you ever heard of it?)
• This pattern increasingly used for simple declaratives
– Evidence that this use originated with Australian adolescent
females, spread to males, and then spread overseas, through soaps,
though it is also a feature of some British accents, notably Ulster
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Intonation: example
•
From Grabe E, Post B “Intonational variation
in the British Isles”, in [book], available at
http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/~esther/GP2002.d
oc
• Intonation used for
declarative statements
• Data based on multiple
recordings of informants
from various regions
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Intonation range
• Even if patterns are the same, a difference
in range may be typical of an accent
• “Range” means how high/low the rises and
falls are
• Some accents characterised as “sing song”
– eg South Wales, Brummie
• Range variation can also be idiolectal
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Stress, rhythm, loudness
• Stress placement in individual words, or (rarely) in
general, can be dialectal (eg Newcastle), and also interacts
with choice of phoneme (weak forms)
• Rhythm differences are usually idiolectal, but can be
associated with regional dialects
– eg some rural accents characterised as having a slower pace of
delivery
– Some non-UK accents might have distinctive rhythmic patters due
to influence of other local languages (eg West Indian accents have
more even rhythm, fewer weak forms)
– Once again, beware of sociological stereotyping that has nothing to
do with linguistics!
• Loudness differences are almost always idiolectal
– Some languages are typically louder than others, but this doesn’t
seem to be the case with accents
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Voice quality features
• Voice quality include things like pitch,
range and loudness, but also eg
– Breathiness, nasality, pharyngealisation,
velarisation, …
• Voice quality usually idiolectal, but there
are some regional tendencies
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Voice quality features
• Several accents can be described as “nasal”
– New York, middle class southern English
• Liverpool and N Wales accents often have a velarised or
pharyngealised quality: tongue is raised towards back of
mouth, giving a “strangled” quality
• Some southern Irish accents can sound “breathy” due to
(pre-)aspiration of stops (influence of Gaelic), and weak
voicing of vowels
• Flexibility of lip-movement might give an accent a certain
quality (tight- or stiff- lipped)
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