Diphthongs

GOAT

It is interesting to see that the FACE and GOAT vowels are not only phonetically related as something like mirror images of each other in the front and back areas of the vocalic space, as glides from a mid onset to a high position, front and back respectively, but they also share a number of regional distribution patterns of their main, mutually corresponding, phonetic variants. In GOAT, again, the main Caribbean realization (of JamE, the T&TCs, SurCs, Baj, and Gullah), shared by CajE and ChcE, is a half-close (this time back) monophthong, [o:], but JamC prefers an ingliding type, e.g. [ʊə​] , which is also possible in Baj as [oə]. (With restrictions, the monophthong is also possible in the Upper Midwest, InlNE, NEngE, NfldE and AAVE, the ingliding version in SAmE and NfldE). AmE and most of its dialectal variants (except for NEngE, and not generally SAmE) are characterized by a pronunciation with a back and rounded onset, e.g. [oʊ/ou] (in SurCs this may occur word-finally only). The pronunciation typically associated with BrE, [əʊ] with a central onset, predominates in varieties where relatively closer cultural and historical ties with southern British influences are attested, viz. SAmE, NEngE and BahE, and it may also come up in WMwE, PhilE and NfldE. In the “Southern Shift” this vowel may be fronted and also lowered to [зʉ] or [æʉ] . Fronting occurs in PhilE as well.