Pronunciation of English ⟨a⟩: Difference between revisions

There are a variety of [[English phonology|pronunciations in modernModern English]] and in historical forms of the language for words spelled with the [[A|letter {{vr|a}}]]. Most of these go back to the [[low vowel]] (the "short A") of earlier [[Middle English]], which later developed both long and short forms. The sound of the long vowel was altered in the [[Great Vowel Shift]], but later a new long A (or "broad A") developed which was not subject to the shift. These processes have produced the main four pronunciations of {{vr|a}} in present-day English: those found in the words ''trap'', ''face'', ''father'' and ''square'' (with the phonetic output depending on whether the dialect is [[Rhoticity in English|rhotic]] or not, and, in rhotic dialects, whether or not the [[Mary-merryMary–merry merger]] occurs). Separate developments have produced additional pronunciations in words like ''wash'', ''talk'' and ''comma''.

Late [[Middle English phonology|Middle English]] had two [[phoneme]]s {{IPA|/a/}} and {{IPA|/aː/}}, differing only in [[Vowel length|length]]. The {{IPA|/a/}} ("short A") was found in words such as ''cat'' {{IPA|[kat]}} and ''trap'' {{IPA|[trap]}}, and also before {{IPA|/r/}} in words such as ''start'' {{IPA|[start]}}. The {{IPA|/aː/}} ("long A") was found in words such as ''face'' {{IPA|[faːs]}}, and before {{IPA|/r/}} in words such as ''scare'' {{IPA|[skaːr]}}. This long A was generally a result of Middle English [[open syllable lengthening]]. For a summary of the various developments in Old and Middle English that led to these vowels, see [[English historical vowel correspondences]].

These trends, allowed to operate unrestrictedly, would have left standard English without any vowels in the {{IPA|[a]}} or {{IPA|[aː]}} area by the late 17th century. However, this putative gap was filled by the following special developments:

* Words that had Middle English {{IPA|[au]}} had a regular development to {{IPA|[ɒː]}} (for example, ''paw''). However, before a nasal, such words sometimes instead developed to {{IPA|[aː]}} (e.g. ''palm'').

The following table shows some developments of Middle English {{IPA|/a/}} in Received Pronunciation. The word ''gate'', which derived from Middle English {{IPA|/aː/}}, has also been included for comparison.

! colspan=2 | [[bad-ladbad–lad split|''bad-ladbad–lad'' split]]<ref name="badlad">Only some speakers, mainly from London.</ref>

! colspan="2" | [[bad-ladbad–lad split|''bad-ladbad–lad'' split]]

Independently of the development of the long vowel, the short {{IPA|/a/}} came to be [[fronting (phonetics)|fronted]] and raised to {{IPAIPAblink|[[near-open front unrounded vowel|[æ]]]}}. This change was mostly confined to "vulgar or popular" speech in the 16th century, but it gradually replaced the more conservative {{IPA|[a]}} in the 17th century, and was "generally accepted by careful speakers by about 1670".<ref>Dobson, p. 548</ref>

In late Middle English, pairs such as ''cat'', ''cart'', were pronounced {{IPA|[kat]}}, {{IPA|[kart]}} respectively, distinguished only by the presence or absence of {{IPA|[r]}}. However, by the late 17th century they were also distinguished by the quality and length of the vowel. In ''cat'', the vowel had been fronted{{what|date=March 2024}} to {{IPA|/kæt/}}, while in ''cart'' it had been lengthened to {{IPA|/kaːrt/}}. This latter change seems to have first occurred in the dialects of southern England in the early 15th century, but did not affect Standard English until the later 17th century.<ref>Dobson, pp. 517–519</ref> It has affected most varieties of contemporary English, which have distinct vowels in pairs such as ''cat'', ''cart''. In [[non-rhotic]] accents, the {{IPA|/r/}} of ''cart'' has been lost; in modern RP the word is pronounced {{IPA|/kɑːt/}}, distinguished from ''cat'' only by the quality and length of the vowel.

Unlike lengthening before nonprevocalic {{IPA|/r/}}, which applied universally in Standard English, lengthening, or '''broadening''', before fricatives was inconsistent and sporadic. This seems to have first occurred in the dialects of Southern England between about 1500 and 1650. It penetrated into Standard English from these dialects around the mid-17th century.

The primary environment which favored broadening was before preconsonantal or morpheme-final voiceless fricatives {{IPA|/f, θ, s/}}. The voiceless fricative {{IPA|/ʃ/}} has never promoted broadening in Standard English in words like ''ash'' and ''crash''. There is, however, evidence that such broadening did occur in dialects.<ref>Dobson p. 533</ref>

Once broadening affected a particular word, it tended to spread by [[Analogy#Linguistics|analogy]] to its inflectional derivatives. For example, from ''pass'' ({{IPA|[paːs]}}) there was also ''passing'' {{IPA|[ˈpaːsɪŋ]}}. This introduced broadening into the environment _sV, from which it was otherwise excluded (compare ''passage'' which is not an inflectional form, and was never affected by broadening).

In a phenomenon going back to Middle English, {{IPA|[f, θ]}} alternate with their voiced equivalents {{IPA|[v, ð]}}. For example, late Middle English ''path'' {{IPA|[paθ]}} alternated with ''paths'' {{IPA|[paðz]}}. When broadening applied to words such as ''path'', it naturally extended to these derivatives: thus when {{IPA|[paθ]}} broadened to {{IPA|[paːθ]}}, {{IPA|[paðz]}} also broadened to {{IPA|[paːðz]}}. This introduced broadening into the environment before a voiced fricative.

Broadening affected Standard English extremely inconsistently. It seems to have been favored when {{IPA|/a/}} was adjacent to labial consonants or {{IPA|/r/}}.<ref name="d531">Dobson, p. 531</ref> It is apparent that it occurred most commonly in short words, especially monosyllables, that were common and well-established in English at the time broadening took place (c. 1500–1650). Words of 3 or more syllables were hardly ever subject to broadening. Learned words, neologisms (such as ''gas'', first found in the late 17th century), and Latinate or Greek borrowings were rarely broadened.

A particularly interesting case is that of the word ''father''. In late Middle English this was generally pronounced {{IPA|[ˈfaðər]}}, thus rhyming with ''gather'' {{IPA|[ˈɡaðər]}}. Broadening of ''father'' is notable both in two respects:

The Oxford English Dictionary describes the broadening of ''father'' as "anomalous".<ref>Oxford English Dictionary, online edition, entry ''father'', retrieved 2011-02-01</ref> Dobson, however, sees broadening in ''father'' as due to the influence of the adjacent {{IPA|/f/}} and {{IPA|/r/}} combined. ''Rather'' and ''lather'' appear to have been subject to broadening later, and in fewer varieties of English, by analogy with ''father''.<ref>Dobson 531-532531–532</ref>

| bath, lath*, path

|avarice, average, avid, avocado, cavalry, cavern, clavicle (clavichord, etc.), davenport, depravity, extravagant, gravel, gravity, have, havoc, lavatory, maverick, navigator (navigable, etc.), savage, tavern, travesty, unravel

In general, all these words, to the extent that they existed in Middle English, had {{IPA|/a/}} ("short A" as in ''trap'') which was broadened to {{IPA|[aː]}}. The exceptions are:

* ''half'' and ''calf'', which had been pronounced with {{IPA|[half, kalf]}} in early Middle English before developing around the early 15th century to {{IPA|[hauf, kauf]}} by [[L-vocalization|''L''-vocalization]].<ref>Dobson, p. 988</ref> In accents of England the development was subsequently the same as that in words such as ''palm'' (see below). The North American development to {{IPA|[æ]}} as in ''trap'' seems to be the result of shortening from {{IPA|[hauf, kauf]}} to {{IPA|[haf, kaf]}}, although there is little evidence of this development.<ref>Dobswon, p. 500</ref>

* ''laugh'', ''laughter'' and ''draft/draught'', which all had {{IPA|[auχ]}} in Middle English. This first changed to {{IPA|[auf]}} (accepted in Standard English from about 1625, but earlier in dialects),<ref>Dobson, p. 947</ref> and was then shortened to {{IPA|[af]}}.<ref>Dobson, pp. 500–501</ref> The subsequent development was similar to other words with {{IPA|[af]}}, such as ''staff''. The development of ''draft/draught'' is notable: in the 17th century it was usually spelled ''draught'' and pronounced to rhyme with ''caught'', making clear its derivation from the verb ''to draw''. The pronunciation with {{IPA|[f]}} was rare, and its use in current English is a historical accident resulting, according to Dobson, from the establishment of the spelling variant ''draft''.<ref>Dobson, p. 501</ref>

The words ''castle'', ''fasten'' and ''raspberry'' are special cases where subsequent sound changes have altered the conditions initially responsible for lengthening. In ''castle'' and ''fasten'', the {{IPA|/t/}} was pronounced, according to a slight majority of 16th and 17th century sources.<ref>Dobson, pp. 968–969</ref> In ''raspberry'' we find {{IPA|/s/}} rather than {{IPA|/z/}}.<ref>Dobson, p. 941</ref>

The pattern of lengthening shown here for Received Pronunciation is generally found in southern England, the Caribbean, and the Southern hemisphere (parts of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa). In North America, with the possible exception of older Boston accents, broadening is found only in ''father'' (the success of broadening in this word alone in North America unexplained){{sfnp|Wells|1982|p=206}} and ''pasta'' (which follows the general pattern for recent Italian loanwords, cf. ''mafia''). In the Boston area there has historically been a tendency to copy RP lengthening which perhaps reached its zenith in the 1930s{{sfnp|Wells|1982|p=?}} but has since receded in the face of general North American norms.

In Irish English broadening is found only in ''father'' (which may, however, also have the FACE vowel). In Scottish and Ulster English the great majority of speakers have no distinction between TRAP and PALM (the ''Sam''–''psalm'' merger). In Welsh English Wells finds broadening generally only in ''father'', with some variation.{{sfnp|Wells|1982|p=387}} In the north of England, broadening is usually found only in ''father'' and ''half'', and in some regions ''master''.{{sfnp|Wells|1982|pp=352–355}}

There was a class of Middle English words in which {{IPA|/au/}} varied with {{IPA|/a/}} before a [[nasal consonant|nasal]]. These are nearly all [[loanword]]s from [[French language|French]], in which uncertainty about how to realize the [[nasalization]] of the French vowel resulted in two varying pronunciations in English. (One might compare the different ways in which modern French loanwords like ''envelope'' are pronounced in contemporary varieties of English.)

Words with Middle English with the {{IPA|/au/}} diphthong [[Phonological history of English low back vowels|generally developed]] to {{IPA|[ɒː]}}{{verification needed|date=January 2017}} in Early Modern English (e.g. ''paw'', ''daughter''). However, in some of the words with the {{IPA|/a ~ au/}} alternation, especially short words in common use, the vowel instead developed into a long A. In words like ''change'' and ''angel'', this development preceded the [[Great Vowel Shift]], and so the resulting long A followed the normal development to modern {{IPA|/eɪ/}}. In other cases, however, the long A appeared later, and thus did not undergo the Great Vowel Shift, but instead merged with the long A that had developed before {{IPA|/r/}} and some fricatives (as described above). Thus words like ''dance'' and ''example'' have come to be pronounced (in modern RP, although mostly not in General American) with the {{IPA|/ɑː/}} vowel of ''start'' and ''bath''.

In some cases, both the {{IPA|/a/}} and the {{IPA|/au/}} forms have survived into modernModern English. For example, from ''Sandre'', a Norman French form of the name [[Alexander]], the modernModern English surnames ''Sanders'' and ''Saunders'' are both derived.<ref>{{cite book

|title=Trap-bathT{{sc2|RAP–BATH}} split

In [[cockney]], {{IPA|/æ/}} and {{IPA|/ʌ/}} can come close as {{IPAblink|æ}} and {{IPAblink|ɐ|ɐ̟}}. Thus, cockney may be an example of a language variety that contrasts near-front and fully front vowels of the same height, roundedness and length, though the former tends to undergo lengthening before {{IPA|/d/}} (see [[bad-ladbad–lad split]]).{{sfnp|Wells|1982|p=305}}

A three-way merger of {{IPA|/æ/}}, {{IPA|/ʌ/}} and {{IPA|/ɑː/}} is a common pronunciation error among L2 speakers of English whose native language is Italian, Spanish andor Catalan.{{sfnp|Swan|2001|p=91}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://pronunciationstudio.com/italian-speakers-english-pronunciation-errors/|title = Italian Speakers' English Pronunciation Errors|date = 22 November 2013}}</ref>

[[Daniel Jones (phonetician)|Daniel Jones]] noted for RP that some speakers had a [[phonemic contrast]] between a long and a short {{IPA|/æ/}}, which he wrote as {{IPA|/æː/}} and {{IPA|/æ/}}, respectively. Thus, in ''An outline of English phonetics'' (1962, ninth edition, Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons) he noted that ''sad'', ''bad'' generally had {{IPA|/æː/}} but ''lad'', ''pad'' had {{IPA|/æ/}}. In his pronouncing dictionary, he recorded several minimal pairs, for example ''bad'' {{IPA|/bæːd/}}, ''bade'' {{IPA|/bæd/}} (also pronounced {{IPA|/ˈbeɪd/}}). He noted that for some speakers, ''jam'' actually represented two different pronunciations, one pronounced {{IPA|/dʒæːm/}} meaning 'fruit conserve', the other {{IPA|/dʒæm/}} meaning 'crush, wedging'. Later editions of this dictionary, edited by [[Alfred C. Gimson]], dropped this distinction.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010|reason=The word 'lad' *does* in fact have a long /æː/ in most British accents affected by the split today; a more accurate name would be the bad–had split, with the latter retaining short /æ/ in the vast majority of these accents.}}

In the [[sociolinguistics]] of English, '''{{IPA|/æ/}} raising''' is a process that occurs in many [[Accent (dialect)|accent]]s of [[American English]], and to some degree in [[Canadian English]], by which {{IPAc-en|audio=near-open front unrounded vowel.ogg|æ}}, the "short ''a''" vowel found in such words as ''ash, bath, man, lamp, pal, rag, sack, trap,'' etc., is [[tenseness|tensed]]: pronounced as more raised, and lengthened and/or [[diphthong]]ized in various environments. The realization of this "tense" (as opposed to "lax") {{IPA|/æ/}} varies from {{IPAblink|ɛː}} to {{IPA|[ɛə]}} to {{IPA|[eə]}} to {{IPA|[ɪə]}}, depending on the speaker's [[Regional accents of English speakers|regional accent]]. The most commonly tensed variant of {{IPA|/æ/}} throughout North American English is when it appears before [[nasal consonants]] (thus, for example, in ''fan'' as opposed to ''fat'').<ref>Boberg, Charles (Spring 2001). "Phonological Status of Western New England." ''American Speech'', Volume 76, Number 1. pp. 3-29 (Article). Duke University Press. p. 11: "The vowel {{IPA|/æ/}} is generally tensed and raised [...] only before nasals, a raising environment for most speakers of North American English."</ref>

* [[Phonological history of the English language]]