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{{English phonology topics}}
{{IPA notice}}
There are a variety of [[English phonology|pronunciations in
==Overview==
{{unreferenced section|date=January 2017}}
Late [[Middle English phonology|Middle English]] had two [[phoneme]]s {{IPA|/a/}} and {{IPA|/aː/}}, differing only in [[Vowel length|length]]. The
As a result of the [[Great Vowel Shift]], the long {{IPA|[aː]}} of ''face'' was [[raising (phonetics)|raised]], initially to {{IPA|[æː]}} and later to {{IPA|[ɛː]}}. After 1700 it was raised even further, and then [[Diphthongization|diphthongized]], leading to the modern standard pronunciation {{IPA|/eɪ/}}. Additionally, the short {{IPA|[a]}} of ''trap'' was [[fronting (phonetics)|fronted]] to {{IPA|[æ]}}; this change became accepted in standard speech during the 17th century. Today there is much regional variation in the realization of this vowel; in [[Received Pronunciation|RP]] there has been a recent trend for it to be lowered again to a fully open {{IPA|[a]}}.
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.
* In two environments, Middle English {{IPA|[a]}} developed to {{IPA|[aː]}} rather than {{IPA|[æ]}}
** Before non-prevocalic {{IPA|/r/}} (e.g. in ''start'', ''star''; but not in ''carry''), {{IPA|[a]}} developed to {{IPA|[aː]}} in all words
** Before some fricatives, broadening happened inconsistently and sporadically
* Words that had Middle English {{IPA|[au]}} had a regular development to {{IPA|[ɒː]}} (for example, ''paw'').
The {{IPA|[aː]}} of the late 17th century has generally backed to {{IPA|[ɑː]}} in several varieties of contemporary English, for example in Received Pronunciation.
The following table shows some developments of Middle English {{IPA|/a/}} in Received Pronunciation.
{| class="wikitable"
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===Before /r/===
{{see also|English-language vowel changes before historic /r/}}
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]}}.
This lengthening occurred when {{IPA|/a/}} was followed by non-pre-vocalic {{IPA|/r/}}; it did not generally apply before intervocalic {{IPA|/r/}} (when the {{IPA|/r/}} was followed by another vowel). Hence the first vowel of ''carrot'' and ''marry'' has normally remained the same as that of ''cat'' (but see the [[mary–marry–merry merger|''mary–marry–merry'' merger]]). However, inflected forms and derivatives of words ending in (historic) {{IPA|/r/}} generally inherit the lengthened vowel, so words like ''barring'' and ''starry'' have {{IPA|/ɑː/}} as do ''bar'' and ''star''.
===Before fricatives===
Unlike lengthening before nonprevocalic {{IPA|/r/}}, which applied universally in Standard English, lengthening, or '''broadening''', before fricatives was inconsistent and sporadic.
The primary environment which favored broadening was before preconsonantal or morpheme-final voiceless fricatives {{IPA|/f, θ, s/}}.
Once broadening affected a particular word, it tended to spread by [[Analogy#Linguistics|analogy]] to its inflectional derivatives.
In a phenomenon going back to Middle English, {{IPA|[f, θ]}} alternate with their voiced equivalents {{IPA|[v, ð]}}.
Broadening affected Standard English extremely inconsistently.
A particularly interesting case is that of the word ''father''.
* its occurrence before an intervocalic voiced fricative {{IPA|[ð]}}
* its distribution in many accents that do not otherwise have broadening, such as those of North America.
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.
The table below represents the results of broadening before fricatives in contemporary Received Pronunciation.<ref>Words are classified according to their pronunciations given in {{cite book
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|_{{IPA|[θ]}}$
| hath, ''math'' (abbrev. for mathematics)
|
|-
|_{{IPA|[θ]}}C
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<!-- |-
|_{{IPA|[v]}}
|avarice, average, avid, avocado, cavalry, cavern, clavicle (clavichord, etc.), davenport, depravity, extravagant, gravel, gravity, have, havoc, lavatory, maverick, navigator (navigable, etc.), savage,
|calve, halve, Java, lava, octavo, (salve), Slav, -->
|-
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* Words in ''italics'' were first recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary later than 1650
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]}}.
* ''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).
* ''laugh'', ''laughter'' and ''draft/draught'', which all had {{IPA|[auχ]}} in Middle English.
The words ''castle'', ''fasten'' and ''raspberry'' are special cases where subsequent sound changes have altered the conditions initially responsible for lengthening.
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 Irish English broadening is found only in ''father'' (which may, however, also have the FACE vowel).
===Before nasals===
There was a class of Middle English words in which {{IPA|/au/}} varied with {{IPA|/a/}} before a [[nasal consonant|nasal]].
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'').
Words in this category may therefore have ended up with a variety of pronunciations in modern standard English: {{IPA|/æ/}} (where the short A pronunciation survived), {{IPA|/ɑː/}} (where the pronunciation with lengthened A was adopted), {{IPA|/ɔː/}} (where the normal development of the AU diphthong was followed), and {{IPA|/eɪ/}} (where the A was lengthened before the Great Vowel Shift). The table below shows the pronunciation of many of these words, classified according to the [[lexical set]]s of John Wells: {{sc2|TRAP}} for {{IPA|/æ/}}, {{sc2|BATH}} for RP {{IPA|/ɑː/}} vs. General American {{IPA|/æ/}}, {{sc2|PALM}} for {{IPA|/ɑː/}}, {{sc2|THOUGHT}} for {{IPA|/ɔː/}}, {{sc2|FACE}} for {{IPA|/eɪ/}}. Although these words were often spelled with both {{angbr|a}} and {{angbr|au}} in Middle English, the current English spelling generally reflects the pronunciation, with {{angbr|au}} used only for those words which have {{IPA|/ɔː/}}; one common exception is ''aunt''.
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<nowiki/>* Not a French loanword
In some cases, both the {{IPA|/a/}} and the {{IPA|/au/}} forms have survived into
|title=The origin of English surnames, part 1
|year=1967
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British dialects with the bad–lad split have instead [[#Trap–bath split|broad {{IPA|/ɑː/|cat=no}}]] in some words where an {{IPA|/m/}} or {{IPA|/n/}} follows the vowel. In this circumstance, Australian speakers usually (but not universally) use {{IPA|/æː/}}, except in the words ''aunt'', ''can't'' and ''shan't'', which have broad {{IPA|/aː/}}.
[[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/}}
Outside of England, ''can'' meaning 'able to' remains {{IPA|/kæn/}}, whereas the noun ''can'' 'container' or the verb ''can'' 'to put into a container' is {{IPA|/kæːn/}}; this is similar to the situation found in [[/æ/ raising]] in some varieties of [[American English]]. A common [[minimal pair]] for modern RP speakers is ''band'' {{IPA|/bæːnd/}} and ''banned'' {{IPA|/bænd/}}. Australian speakers who use 'span' as the past tense of 'spin' also have a minimal pair between longer {{IPA|/spæːn/}} (meaning width or the transitive verb with a river or divide) and {{IPA|/spæn/}}, the past tense of 'spin' ({{IPA|/spæn/}}).<!-- this claim may be from,<ref>{{Citation
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{{main|/æ/ raising}}
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]].
== In foreign borrowings ==
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==See also==
* [[List of Latin-script digraphs]]
* [[Phonological history of
* [[Phonological history of English vowels]]
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