Phonetic Change

• Historical change
  • Great Vowel Shift
• Changes occurring in American English
  • Low-back vowel merger
  • Vowel chain shifts

Objectives

• Briefly describe major changes in vowels from Middle to Modern English
• Explain how sound-to-letter correspondence in English was affected by the Great Vowel Shift
• Define merger and describe the low-back merger in American English
• Define chain shift and briefly describe some changes involved in the Northern Cities Shift and the Southern Shift

Resources

• History of English
• The Great Vowel Shift
• More on The Great Vowel Shift
• The Northern Cities Shift
  
• Southern Vowel Shift
• Labov on mergers and chain shifts
• Labov interview on NPR
• IDEA archive - dialects of English