Vowel centralization

Whereas unstressed vowels in most dialects of American English typically centralize to a schwa-mean, as in White Chicago English, only some of ChcE unstressed vowels centralize (Santa Ana 1991). Their high vowels, /i/ and /u/, do not reduce, while mid vowels reduce less frequently than AmE mid vowels. As well, ChcE low vowels centralize (Santa Ana 1991). On the basis of five speakers, Santa Ana found no language-internal or social category explanation for their different centralization targets, and consequently sought a dialect contact explanation. He hypothesized that the extent to which ChcE-speakers accommodated to the general U.S. schwa-mean centralization pattern corresponded to the amount of social contact and personal identification that an individual had with Euro-American dialect speakers (177).

In contrast, Veatch (1991: 200) instrumentally measured the ChcE vowel centralization of a single individual. His measurements indicated that non-stress articulation lowers ChcE /e, ε, æ/ and /ɥ/ , that it backs /o, ʊ/ , and finally, that it has no effect on /i/. Veatch characterized ChcE vowel centralization as a single process, namely all centralizing vowels shift to an [ɨ] vowel quality. In this process, ChcE is similar to Alabama English in having an [Ɨ] centralization target. From the current authors’ present perspective, the issue of vowel centralization in ChcE has not been resolved.