Labiodental fronting of /θ/ in London and Edinburgh: a cross-dialectal study

Abstract

This study examines the lexical and grammatical diffusion of TH-fronting amongst adolescents in London, where TH-fronting is well established, and Edinburgh, where it is a relatively new phenomenon. Our results reveal that the application of TH-fronting is constrained in Edinburgh in ways that are not relevant for London, and vice versa. Specifically, whereas TH-fronting is sensitive to phonotactic context and prosodic position in Edinburgh, we observe no such effects amongst the London speakers. Morphological complexity, on the other hand, is a significant predictor of TH-fronting in both regions; however, we also find evidence of significant gender differences in the use of fronting in London that do not emerge in our Edinburgh data. We argue that these results attest to the more established nature of TH-fronting in London as compared to Edinburgh. We also address the question of how speech perception influences the emergence and spread of innovative neutralisation phenomena like TH-fronting. The results of this study further highlight the usefulness of a comparative variationist approach to understanding patterns of dialectal variation and change.

Perturbing the community grammar: Individual differences and community-level constraints on sociolinguistic variation

“…It also means that when two varieties share a change, but the change has progressed further in one than the other, we may find cross-community differences in constraints. Schleef & Ramsammy (2013) explain cross-community differences in the effect of word position on th-fronting in this way.…”

Are there impossible changes? θ > f but f ≯ θ

“…Other studies of θ > f in progress (e.g. Clark & Trousdale 2009, Schleef & Ramsammy 2013 do not describe in--between forms, and so from all this it seems most likely that θ > f is monoquantal.…”

“…This is commonly assumed (e.g. Blevins 2004, Schleef & Ramsammy 2013, but Garrett & Johnson (2013) propose that θ > f involves an intermediate stage of a labialized dental fricative θ w on the basis of a reconstruction of an intermediate stage of θ w in Athabaskan and a description of similar forms in a study of variation in the currently occurring θ > f change in Glasgow (Stuart--Smith, Timmins & Tweedie 2007). This seems ill--founded to me.…”

TH variation in Hong Kong English

“…Research on TH variation in different varieties of English has primarily focused on TH-fronting, defined here as the production of the voiceless dental fricative /θ/ as the voiceless labiodental fricative [f], which has been found to occur in varieties of New Zealand English, Scottish English and British English, amongst others (Wells 1982;Kerswill 2003;Wood 2003;Clark & Trousdale 2009;Schleef & Ramsammy 2013;Stuart-Smith et al 2013). It is particularly pervasive in southern England and appears to be increasing in northern England as well as in Scotland (Kerswill 2003), leading to a growing interest in understanding the social and linguistic factors that govern TH-fronting in these contexts.…”

“…It is particularly pervasive in southern England and appears to be increasing in northern England as well as in Scotland (Kerswill 2003), leading to a growing interest in understanding the social and linguistic factors that govern TH-fronting in these contexts. As such, there now exists a robust body of research (Kerswill 2003;Wood 2003;Clark & Trousdale 2009;Schleef & Ramsammy 2013;Stuart-Smith et al 2013) that has provided insight into how social factors such as gender and socioeconomic class as well as linguistic factors such as stress and lexical category constrain TH-fronting in varieties of English in both England and Scotland.…”