Competing systems in Philadelphia phonology

Abstract

This is a study of the competition of linguistic systems within the speech community, tracing the opposition of distinct phonological configurations. Among younger Philadelphians oriented to higher education, the traditional short-a system is giving way to the nasal system, in which all prenasal vowels are tense. We present evidence that this shift occurs systematically in both the lax and tense allophones. The degree of conformity to each system is measured for 106 subjects by the Pillai statistic; community-wide patterns are revealed by regression modeling and bimodality diagrams. Adherence to the traditional system is greatest for White speakers who graduated from Catholic high schools, while the nasal system is strongest for graduates from elite schools with special admission requirements. African American students show no orientation to the traditional system, but parallel White students in the shift to the nasal system. The histories of students through the educational system show that the speaker's short-a system is largely determined during their middle and high school years, before entering college. Special admission interviews play a special role in this process, as brief speech events that strongly determine the person's linguistic environment for the years that follow.

Using the Tolerance Principle to predict phonological change

“…This specific finding bolsters the claim in Labov et al (2016) that, based on community-wide social characteristics, the shift from PHL to NAS is a change from above through dialect contact with NAS speakers who are unevenly distributed across social networks.…”

“…The complicated nature of PHL and the existence of lexical exceptions has prompted some analyses to describe this split as two distinct phonemes (e.g., Ferguson, 1972;Labov, 1989;Labov, Ash, & Boberg, 2006). However, recent work (e.g., Labov et al 2016;Sneller 2018) agrees with the position of Kiparsky (1995), finding evidence that speakers of Philadelphia English born after 1985 treat this split as an allophonic distinction rather than a phonemic one.…”

“…Note that the mismatch between traditional input and PHL for bad reflects the fact that bad must be treated as a lexical exception, while PHL only captures the regular phonological generalization. (Labov et al 2016;Labov, Rosenfelder, and Fruehwald 2013)Turning to the question of whether NAS can be a productive rule given traditional input, we find that positing R = NAS requires listing a total of 324 exceptions (e.g. all tense /ae/ before anterior voiceless fricatives, all lax /ae/ before posterior nasals), well over the tolerance threshold.…”

“…Moreover, Jake's social profile suggests that he developed a PHLfricative production as a result of NAS contact, rather than a modification of the traditional PHL input: Jake was born in 1992 and attended the elite Masterman public middle and high school before going on to attend the University of Pennsylvania. Labov et al (2016) found that most of his peers -speakers born around 1992 who attended Masterman -already produced NAS, suggesting that Jake developed a PHL-fricative /ae/ system as a response to his predominately NAS surroundings rather than as a catalyst for NAS emerging. The lack of speakers producing PHL-fricative in Philadelphia suggests that language learners positing this intermediate rule was not the route by which NAS came into Philadelphia.…”

Phonetics, phonology and social meaning

“…Recently, a new system has arisen in competition with this, among a rather large population of young speakers oriented to higher education (in non‐Catholic schools with special admission requirements; Labov et al. in press). This is the nasal system , rather similar to that found with increasing frequency in many parts of the U.S.…”