Prevelar Merger8/11/2023 Where do bag, egg, and vague rhyme? In some parts of the country, "egg" often rhymes with "vague," and some people say "bag" the same way, too. In the Northwest, this merger (collapsing of sound categories) affects three front vowel sounds /æ, ɛ, e/ before voiced velar consonants /ɡ, ŋ/ ("hard-G" and "NG"). In sociolinguistic interviews with Seattleites, young adults were less likely than their parents or grandparents to pronounce "tag, bag, lag" like "beg." In another study, I recorded people in a formal lab setting, where many pronounced the sounds as different -- like the vowels in "bat, bet, bait." In a perception study, young adults categorized all three vowel sounds as merged, but older people did not. These patterns suggest that /æ, ɛ, e/ before /ɡ/ have become more merged over the generations, but merger is not as acceptable in formal settings, and young people may be avoiding it. See project news here. Papers & Presentations
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