# Stereotype: OH Lowering $({/ɔ/ → [u]} → [ɒ])$ ## In Greater Philadelphia In white Philadelphians, the raised [u] variant of /ɔ/ is a shibboleth of Philadelphian speech (e.g., ‘fought her’ sounds more like ‘footer’). Recently, this raised vowel has begun lowering back toward its earlier height. * The transition from a mid or high vowel to a lowered variant (approximated as [ɒ]) places it closer to the space of /ɑ/, but Labov, Rosenfelder, and Fruehwald disagree that there is evidence for merger in Philadelphia specifically (2013, p. 57). The researchers find that the trend toward reversal and lowering /ɔ/ is positively correlated with educational attainment, and they argue that those with higher levels of education desire to minimize this socially salient regional feature in (Labov et al., 2013, pp. 49–50). Rather, it appears that lowering of /ɔ/ is driven by a desire to avoid association with less prestigious vernacular speech of New York City—which is currently seeing a similar trend toward lowering among younger speakers (Becker, 2014). ## /ɔ/ in African-American Philadelphians * Black speakers appear to be raising the vowel (Labov, 2014, p. 7), which is the opposite of what occurs in white speakers in Philadelphia. * Speakers born in 1920 and 1980 have approximately equal vowel heights, but speakers born in 1950 show much lower vowels (by about 100Hz). * This contrasts with the white data, where there has been a general lowering of the vowel in those born from 1920 onward. Put another way, the trend suggests that whites and blacks were both lowering the vowel up until those born in 1950, when the pattern changed for blacks. ## /ɔ/-Lowering in Puerto Rican Philadelphians ### Speaker Sex * **Males**: robust, curvilinear effect of age * After approximately 1980, the vowel drops rapidly, which suggests reversal of the raised /ɔ/. * The height of /ɑ/ remains constant as the /ɔ/ vowel lowers, resulting in less acoustic distance between the two vowels in younger males than in females or older males * **Females**: Gradual lowering, approximately a generation earlier than males, * Stabilized for those born in approximately 1980 * The position of /ɑ/ relative to /ɔ/ remains constant over apparent time. [OH-Lowering by Sex and Birth Year (Conversational Speech)][1] [OH-Lowering by Sex and Birth Year (Read Speech)][2] ### Socioeconomic Status Interaction with Speaker Sex * **Men**: no social or stylistic stratification. * **Women**: the higher the occupation group, the lower the /ɔ/ vowel. If we assume socioeconomic status is correlated to degree of higher education, this matches the observed trend for white speakers (Labov et al., 2013). While this distinction is clearest between Puerto Rican women with production as opposed to service occupations, it is worthwhile to note that professional women have lowered variants in both speech styles. [OH-Lowering by Sex and SES][3] #### On lowering in men: The cot-caught merger Younger Puerto Rican males appear to be approaching merger of /ɔ/ and /ɑ/ in conversational speech, such that *bought* sounds more like *bot*, as they lower /ɔ/. This is different from white, educated Philadelphians (e.g., Prichard & Tamminga, 2012), who maintain a distinction between the two vowels even after lowering /ɔ/ into a space closer to /ɑ/ (approximated as [ɒ]). In the read speech of younger men, /ɔ/ is raised as /ɑ/ is lowered. Effectively, younger Puerto Rican males in Philadelphia reduce the near-merger in their conversational speech when speaking in a more formal setting. [Pillai Scores for Males by Age Group and Speech Style][4] For both age groups, /ɔ/ occupies a smaller F1 range in read speech than in conversational speech. This is most prominent for the older Puerto Rican males, who show much more constrained, lowered, and more fronted /ɔ/ in read speech. Unlike in the white population, where lowering /ɔ/ does not lead to merger (e.g., Prichard & Tamminga, 2012), in the Puerto Rican data the merger is clear. Males in both age groups appear to possess the caught-cot merger in more formal, read speech. The key difference, then, is that older males appear to style shift while younger males do not. While an incipient low back merger does not align with trends in Philadelphia’s white population, it is consistent with speakers in transitional areas, such as the Southern US. Given that older males show greater merger in read as opposed to conversational speech, older men might have begun to attune to the social value of the variable. Younger males, whose parents would have demonstrated style shifting away from the stigmatized variant, may avoid /ɔ/ in their speech more generally. Merger is also an elegant way to hide a stigmatized vowel and, given the near ubiquity of this merger across the US, it is unlikely to arouse much suspicion or engender a great deal of confusion among interlocutors. That said, the merger would occasionally lead to perception errors on the part of white Philadelphians who maintain the distinction (cf. Labov, 2010, pp. 33–36). In general, misperceptions are heard on the part of those who maintain the distinction; those who merge rarely have trouble understanding. Women, who show expected effects of socioeconomic status on lowering, avoid the stigmatized variable without the risk of misperception from a white Philadelphian with separate categories for /ɔ/ and /ɑ/. This effect may be driven by the nature of professional women’s work, where maintaining the distinction present in the larger Philadelphia community would facilitate comprehension by a customer or colleague. [Lack of Merger in Females][5] [1]: https://osf.io/zxmpt [2]: https://osf.io/a4su6/ [3]: https://osf.io/8qwcp [4]: https://osf.io/vy9sn [5]: https://osf.io/7x6qb