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.