Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T09:24:08.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Canadian Raising Retrospect and Prospect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

J.K. Chambers
J.K. Chambers*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Canadian Raising, which makes allophonic variants of the low diphthongs /ai/ and /au/, is evaluated with respect to its diachronic, geographic, and synchronic status. Its origins have been established by documentary evidence from 1934. However, comparative dialect evidence from the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada pushes the origins back to the second half of the 19th century. Raising of /ai/ in the northern United States turns out to be different from Canadian Raising, though they overlap. Sociolinguistic studies of (aw)-Fronting in 1980 showed a tendency for fronted onsets to be unraised. Though this was statistically insignificant, any strengthening would threaten the existence of Canadian Raising. Subsequent research shows that the tendency was accidental.

Résumé

Résumé

Le Canadian Raising, un phénomène qui transforme en variantes allophoniques les diphtongues basses /ai/ and /au/, est évalué par rapport à son statut diachronique, géographique et synchronique. Ses origines ont été établies sur la base de preuves documentaires datant de 1934. Cependant, les données comparatives dialectales du Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada ont repoussé les origines de ce processus jusqu’à la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle. Dans la partie nord des États-Unis, la réalisation de /ai/ se différencie du Canadian Raising, malgré le fait qu’il y a un chevauchement entre les deux phénomènes. Les études sociolinguistiques sur l’antériorisation-du-(aw) de 1980 ont démontré une tendance de la voyelle avancée, lorsqu’elle est la première d’une diphtongue, à être non-relevéehaute. Bien que ceci était statistiquement non-significative, toute forme de consolidation aurait menacé l’existence du Canadian Raising. Or, des recherches ultérieures ont démontré que la tendance était accidentelle.

Type
Sounds Canadian
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 51 , Issue 2-3: Canadian English in a Global Context , November 2006 , pp. 105 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahrend, Evelyn R. 1934. Ontario Speech. American Speech 9:136–139.Google Scholar
Ayearst, Morley. 1939. A note on Canadian speech. American Speech 14:231–233.Google Scholar
Britain, David. 1997. Dialect contact and phonological reallocation: ‘Canadian Raising’ in the English Fens. Language in Society 26:15–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1973. Canadian Raising. Canadian Journal of Linguistics!Revue canadienne de linguistique 18:113–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1979. Canadian English. In The languages of Canada, ed. Chambers, J.K., 168–204. Montreal: Didier.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1980. Linguistic variation and Chomsky’s ‘homogeneous speech community’. In Papers of the fourth annual meeting of the Atlantic Provinces Linguistic Association, ed. Kinloch, A. Murray and House, A.B., 1–31. Atlantic Provinces Linguistic Association.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1981. The Americanization of Canadian Raising. In Papers from the parasessions on language and behaviour, ed. Miller, M.F., Masek, C.S., and Hendrick, R.A., 20–35. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K. 1989. Canadian Raising: Blocking, fronting, etc. American Speech 64:75–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, J.K., and Hardwick, Margaret F.. 1986. Comparative sociolinguistics of a sound change in Canadian English. English World-Wide 7:25–16.Google Scholar
Noam, Chomsky, and Halle, Morris. 1968. The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Jennifer, Dailey-O’Cain. 1997. Canadian raising in a midwestern U.S. city. Language Variation and Change 9:107–120.Google Scholar
Davison, John. 1987. On saying /aw/ in Victoria. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 7:109–122.Google Scholar
Easson, Gordon. 1997. Out and about in Toronto: (aw)-Fronting in real time and apparent time. Ms., University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Murray B, Emeneau. 1935. The dialect of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Language 11:140–147.Google Scholar
Robert J, Gregg. 1973. The diphthongs ǝi and ai in Scottish, Scotch-Irish and Canadian English. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 18:136–145.Google Scholar
Hung, Henrietta, Davison, John, and Chambers, J.K.. 1993. Comparative socio-linguistics of (aw)-Fronting. In Focus on Canada, ed. Clarke, Sandra, 247–268. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Kinloch, A. Murray, and Fazilah, Ismail. 1993. Canadian Raising: /au/ in Fredericton New Brunswick. Linguistica Atlantica 15:105–114.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul. 1974. On the evaluation measure. In Papers from the parasession on Natural Phonology, ed. Bruck, Anthony, Fox, Robert A., and Galy, Michael W. La, 328–337. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Milroy, James. 1996. Variation in /ai/ in Northern British English, with comments on Canadian Raising. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 3: (N) WAVEs and MEANS: A selection of papers from NWAVE 24, ed. Meyerhoff, Miriam, 213–222.Google Scholar
Niedzielski, Nancy. 1997. The effect of social information on the phonetic perception of sociolinguistic variables. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara.Google Scholar
Rosenfelder, Ingrid. 2005. Canadian Raising in Victoria, B.C.: An acoustic analysis. Neuphilologischen Fakultät, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Heidelberg.Google Scholar
Thomas, Erik R. 1991. The origin of Canadian Raising in Ontario. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 36:147–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vance, Timothy J. 1987. “Canadian Raising” in some dialects of the northern United States. American Speech 62:195–210.Google Scholar
Woods, Howard B. 1999. The Ottawa survey of Canadian English. Kingston, ON: Strathy Language Unit, Queen’s University.Google Scholar