Trap–bath split
This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2018) |
The TRAP–BATH split is a
In accents unaffected by the split, words like bath and laugh usually have the same vowel as words like cat, trap and man: the short A or flat A. Similar changes took place in words with ⟨o⟩ in the
The sound change originally occurred in Southern England and ultimately changed the sound of /æ/ ⓘ to /ɑː/ ⓘ in some words in which the former sound appeared before /f, s, θ, ns, nt, ntʃ, mpəl/. That led to RP /pɑːθ/ for path, /ˈsɑːmpəl/ for sample etc. The sound change did not occur before other consonants and so accents affected by the split preserve /æ/ in words like cat. (See the section below for more details on the words affected.) The lengthening of the bath vowel began in the 17th century but was "stigmatised as a Cockneyism until well into the 19th century".[2]: 122 However, since the late 19th century, it has been embraced as a feature of upper-class Received Pronunciation.
British accents
The presence or absence of this split is one of the most noticeable differences between different accents of
There is some variation close to the isogloss; for example in the dialect of Birmingham (the so-called '
In northern English dialects, the short A is phonetically [a~a̠], while the broad A varies from [ɑː] to [aː]; for some speakers, the two vowels may be identical in quality, differing only in length ([a] vs [aː]).
In some West Country accents of English English in which the vowel in trap is realised as [a] rather than [æ], the vowel in the bath words was lengthened to [aː] and did not merge with the /ɑː/ of father. In those accents, trap, bath, and father all have distinct vowels /a/, /aː/, and /ɑː/.[10]
In Cornwall, Bristol and its nearby towns, and many forms of Scottish English, there is no distinction corresponding to the RP distinction between /æ/ and /ɑː/.
In Multicultural London English, /θ/ sometimes merges with /t/ but the preceding vowel remains unchanged. That leads to the homophony between bath and path on the one hand and Bart and part on the other. Both pairs are thus pronounced [ˈbɑːt] and [ˈpɑːt], respectively, which is not common in other non-rhotic accents of English that differentiate /ɑː/ from /æ/. That is not categorical, and th-fronting may occur instead and so bath and path can be [ˈbɑːf] and [ˈpɑːf] instead, as in Cockney.
In Received Pronunciation
In
RP sets for the trap–bath split | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
The split created a handful of minimal pairs, such as ant–aunt, caff–calf, cant–can't, have–halve, and staph-staff. There also are some near-minimal pairs, such as ample–sample. In accents with th-fronting (such as cockney), there are additional minimal pairs such as baff–bath and hath–half, and, in accents with th-stopping (which occurs variably in Multicultural London English), there are other minimal pairs such as bat–bath, lat–lath (with lat meaning 'latitude') and pat–path. In addition, the h-dropping in cockney creates more minimal pairs such as aff–half (with aff meaning affirmative) and asp–hasp.
For the words in the last row, subsequent sound changes have altered the conditions initially responsible for lengthening.
There are some words in which both pronunciations are heard among southern speakers:
- the words Basque, bastard, chaff, dastard, Glasgow, graph, lather, masquerade, pasteurise, plaque, (circum)stance
- Greek elements as in telegraph, blastocyst, chloroplast
- words with the prefix trans-
While graph, telegraph, photograph can have either form (in Received Pronunciation, they now have broad A), graphic and permutations always have a flat A.
Broad A fluctuates in dialects that include it; before s it is a more common alternative when in its common voiceless variant (/s/ rather than /z/) (in transfer [tɹɑːnsˈfɜː], transport [tɹɑːnˈspɔːt] and variants) than when it is voiced (thus translate [tɹænzˈleɪt], trans-Atlantic [tɹænzətlæntɪk]).
Social attitudes
Some research has concluded that many people in Northern England dislike the /ɑː/ vowel in bath words. AF Gupta writes, 'Many of the northerners were noticeably hostile to /ɡrɑːs/, describing it as "comical", "snobbish", "pompous" or even "for morons"'.[9] Writing on a Labovian study of speech in West Yorkshire, K. M. Petyt stated in 1985 that several respondents 'positively said that they did not prefer the long-vowel form or that they really detested it or even that it was incorrect'.[11] However, Joan Beal said in a 1989 review of Petyt's work that those who disliked the pronunciation still associated it with the BBC and with the sort of professional positions to which they would aspire.[12]
Southern Hemisphere accents
Evidence for the date of the shift comes from the Southern Hemisphere accents in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
In Australian English, there is generally agreement with Southern England in words like path, laugh, class. However, with the exception of South Australian English and in the specific words aunt, can't, shan't in any Australian English, other words with the vowel appearing before /n/ or /m/, such as dance, plant, example, can use the flat A. In Australia, there is variation in words like castle and graph; for more information, see the table at Variation in Australian English. In South Australian English, the broad A is usually used. Phonetically, the Australian broad A is [äː].
South African English and New Zealand English have a sound distribution similar to that of Received Pronunciation.
North American accents
Most accents of
Related but distinct phenomena include the following:
- The phonemic tensing of /æ/ in the accents of /æ/ tensing).
- The drawled pronunciation /æ/ → [æə] in Southern accents; many South Midland, Appalachian English, and inland Southern speakers also raise the /æ/ in aunt, dance, plant to [ɛ] or [e].
In North American English, the non-front realization of continental ⟨a⟩ in loanwords such as pasta /ˈpɑstə/ (U.S. only; cf. British and Canadian /ˈpæstə/) is not an example of the trap-bath split because the vast majority of North American English accents do not feature the split in native words. Furthermore, the /ɑ/ realization occurs regardless of the phonetic environment, even in those environments where the lengthening did not take place in the south of England, such as before a bare final /n/ in the German surname Mann /ˈmɑn/ (cf. British /ˈmæn/, homophonous with the native word man).
Notes
References
- ISBN 978-3-11-019718-1.
- S2CID 54620954.
- ^ Wells (1982), p. 387.
- ^ Wells (1982), pp. 356, 360.
- ^ Wells (1982), p. 134.
- ^ English Places, John Wells's phonetic blog, post of Friday, 16 March 2012
- ^ Gupta (2005), p. 23.
- ^ a b Gupta (2005), p. 25.
- ^ Wells (1982), pp. 346–47.
- ISBN 90-272-4864-8.
- JSTOR 4168067.
- ^ a b Wells (1982), pp. 522–3.