The Northern Cities Shift in real- and apparent-time:

Evidence from Chicago

Corrine McCarthyGeorge Mason University

The Northern Cities Shift

cat

caughtbut

bit

cot, father

bet

i

e

æ

ohʌ

o~ah

1

2

based on Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006)

Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006):“The raising of /æ/ and the fronting of /o/ were the initial movements, though both the geography and real time are ambiguous in regard to their ordering” (ANAE: 191).

• PEAS (Kurath & McDavid 1961): sporadic /æ/ raising, /ah/ fronting in Upstate NY.

• Thomas (2000): acoustic evidence for /ah/ shifting, lack of /æ/ raising in N. Ohio speaker born in 1878.

Research Questions

Apparent-time data from Chicagoans:– Is either movement still active?

Archival data from speakers born 1891-1919:– What did the Shift look like in the early

1900s?– When did these movements begin?

Chicago’s vowels todayFrom a larger study based on 36 Chicagoans,

divided into 3 age groups (under 35, 39-49, over 55):

• /ah/ mean F2: 1486 Hz– just back of center: [a], not [æ]– no significant effect of age; no longer a

change in progress (F=1.52; p=.23)– no significant effect of sex

• /æ/ mean F1: 593 Hz, F2: 2028 Hz– 565 Hz (women); 631 Hz (men)– all raised, but /æn/ higher than /æ/ elsewhere– all either ingliding or bimoraic (“broken”)– no significant effect of age (F1: F=.25; p=.78; F2:

F=2.43; p=.13)

• Neither /æ/ nor /ah/ shows evidence for a change in progress in Chicago.

Chicago’s vowels today

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are needed to see this picture.

Method

• 6 archival recordings made with native Chicagoans (from city and suburbs)– 4 from Dictionary of American Regional English

(DARE), 2 from radio archive of Chicago Historical Society

• Born between 1891-1919– 3 “early”: 1891-1894– 3 “late”: 1909-1919

• 5 women, 1 man

MethodAcoustic analysis in Praat:• All major vowels from spontaneous speech and/or

DARE reading passage• /ah/: single point measurement• /æ/: two points: nucleus and ‘glide’; divided into 3

environments• pre-nasal: /æn/ ‘hand’, ‘family’• pre-post-alveolar (velars and alveopalatals): /æg/ ‘crash’,

‘track’, ‘bag’• elsewhere: /æ/

• Normalized using TELSUR’s G method (Thomas & Kendall 2007)

Characteristics of modern Chicago vowels

Shifted /ah/:– within 1 st. dev. unit of modern Chicago’s

mean: over 1413 Hz

Shifted /æ/:– /æ/ nucleus has lower F1, higher F2 (higher

and fronter) than /e/– all environments have an inglide– pre-nasal (/æn/) favors increased raising

F1 /æ/ < /e/All inglidingF1 /æn/ < /æ/

Early:Willie, born1891

F1 /æ/ < /e/All inglidingF1 /æn/ < /æ/

Early:Dorothy, born1891

F1 /æ/ < /e/All inglidingF1 /æn/ < /æ/

Early:Helen, born1894

F1 /æ/ < /e/All inglidingF1 /æn/ < /æ/

Late:Eleanor, born1909

F1 /æ/ < /e/All inglidingF1 /æn/ < /æ/

Late:Shirley, born1918

F1 /æ/ < /e/All inglidingF1 /æn/ < /æ/

Late:Lucy, born1919

/ah/: Mean (standard deviation)

Speaker N F1 F2Dorothy 21 918 (54) 1430 (107)

Willie 36 823 (77) 1421 (83)

Helen 8 908 (64) 1625 (73)

Eleanor 19 852 (65) 1581 (91)

Shirley 19 863 (61) 1608 (80)

Lucy 24 868 (67) 1488 (132)

/æ/: Mean (standard deviation)

First point Second pointN F1 F2 F1 F2

Dorothy 25 730 (75) 2170 (182) 783 (96) 1940 (143)

Willie 29 739 (64) 1849 (144) 780 (52) 1839 (129)

Helen 13 761 (54) 2237 (338) 798 (60) 2082 (309)

Eleanor 24 607 (75) 2004 (186) 696 (66) 1886 (114)

Shirley 12 698 (73) 2112 (261) 783 (62) 1788 (174)

Lucy 23 515 (79) 2349 (189) 763 (80) 1815 (168)

First point Second pointN F1 F2 F1 F2

Dorothy 12 758 (75) 2128 (217) 780 (83) 2024 (161)

Willie 18 670 (49) 1943 (170) 668 (74) 1869 (107)

Helen 3 732 (40) 2323 (202) 806 (17) 2083 (168)

Eleanor 13 637 (90) 2050 (135) 725 (67) 1903 (123)

Shirley 8 626 (97) 2175 (174) 733 (104) 1888 (140)

Lucy 10 478 (43) 2505 (108) 756 (87) 1886 (105)

/æn/: Mean (standard deviation)

First point Second pointN F1 F2 F1 F2

Dorothy 12 690 (67) 1787 (185) 694 (120) 2050 (93)

Willie 12 712 (57) 1811 (168) 746 (67) 1907 (148)

Helen 2 755 (46) 1895 (154) 746 (59) 2230 (79)

Eleanor 6 586 (97) 1878 (77) 627 (93) 2015 (90)

Shirley 10 728 (88) 2008 (156) 788 (83) 1906 (154)

Lucy 9 609 (137) 2252 (185) 778 (81) 1975 (106)

/æg/: Mean (standard deviation)

/æ/

Overall: /æ/ shows development from early to late speakers– reversal of /æ/ and /e/ F1 values not seen

until late – /æg/ often has a front glide until late – /æn/ advantage not seen until late– only the latest speakers (Eleanor, Lucy)

are within 1 st. dev. unit of the modern mean

/ah/

• No clear evidence for development.• All speakers’ /ah/ is within one standard

deviation unit of the mean for modern Chicago /ah/.

Conclusions• Late emergence of /æ/ raising is more

consistent with Thomas (2000)’s chronology.– Evidence for tensing (fronting) prior to

raising.• Over a span of 30 years, /æ/ shows

evidence of very quick shifting.• /ah/ fronting may be an earlier but more

gradual development.

ReferencesGordon, Matthew J. 2001. Small Town Values, Big City Vowels: A Study of the

Northern Cities Shift in Michigan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Kurath, Hans & McDavid, Raven. 1961. The Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic

States. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Labov, William, Sharon Ash & Charles Boberg. 2006. The Atlas of North American

English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Thomas, Erik R. 2000. An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Thomas, Erik R. & Tyler Kendall. 2007. NORM: The vowel normalization and plotting

suite. [ Online Resource: http://ncslaap.lib.ncsu.edu/tools/norm/ ]

Joan H. Hall and the staff of the Dictionary of American Regional EnglishGMU Department of English, Linguistics Program, and College of

Humanities and Social SciencesResearch Assistants: Judy Hadley, Tel Monks, Megan Scrivener

Acknowledgements

Internet materialsView this Powerpoint file, including larger vowel plots at:

http://mason.gmu.edu/~cmccart6/research.html