Vowels MOUTH

Wood (1987: 124–125) maintains that ‘raised’ (and often glide-weakened) onsets in MOUTH are typical of Extreme CFE speakers and are very common among L1 speakers, but would be avoided by those higher up the social scale, who usually use [aʊ]. Hastings (1979, quoted in Wood 1987: 111) maintains that diphthong weakening is typical of CFE. However, detailed research by Finn (forthcoming) has revealed that in fact, MOUTH (like PRICE) is subject to a sub-phonemic Canadian Raising rule, whereby onsets are non-low in pre-fortis environments but low elsewhere. Thus, typical realizations are BOUT as [bɐut], [bæut] compared to BOWED and BOUGH as  and [bau] respectively. Other non-low pre-fortis realizations include [Λu] and [əu], while other non-prefortis realizations include [ɑu] and [ɒu]. Also similarly to PRICE, offsets of MOUTH are in fact typically markedly peripheral (i.e. strongly backed and rounded) rather than weakened. Once again, Lanham (1982: 343) maintains that ‘high diphthongal glides’ are characteristic of Afrikaans-influenced English generally, and used even by well-educated speakers – as confirmed in Wood’s (1987: 137–138) and my own data. It is particularly noticeable in word-final position. When reduction does occur it is typically in unstressed position or before /l/ (e.g. [ʔa'^əƗ] owl). In hiatus (as in the subset POWER), the offset is typically realized as [w] (e.g. ['pauwɐ']).