The monophthongization of /ay/ in the Southern United States is disfavored by following voiceless consonants (price) relative to voiced or word-final environments (prize). If monophthongization is the trigger for the Southern Shift (Labov, 2010) and chain shifts operate as predicted by a modular feedforward phonological theory (cf. Bermúdez-Otero, 2007), this implies price and prize must be two ends of a phonetic continuum, rather than two discrete allophones. We test this hypothesis via distributional analysis of offglide targets and statistical analysis of the effect of vowel duration. As predicted, we find price and prize share a continuous distribution in the Inland South, the region where the Southern Shift probably originated (Labov, Ash, & Boberg, 2006). We use Raleigh, North Carolina, outside the Inland South, as a comparison point; there, the same methodologies indicate price and prize are more discretely separated. Our results thus offer empirical support for the phonological theory that motivated the hypothesis.

中文翻译：

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梯度、同位异音和链式转换

在美国南部，/ay/ 的单音化不受欢迎，因为跟随清辅音 (价钱) 相对于浊音或词尾环境 (奖）。如果单音化是南移的触发因素（Labov，2010），并且链移按照模块化前馈语音理论（参见 Bermúdez-Otero，2007）的预测运行，这意味着价钱和奖必须是语音连续体的两端，而不是两个离散的同位异音。我们通过对 offglide 目标的分布分析和对元音持续时间影响的统计分析来检验这一假设。正如预测的那样，我们发现价钱和奖在内陆南部共享一个连续分布，南移可能起源于该地区（Labov、Ash 和 Boberg，2006 年）。我们使用内陆南部以外的北卡罗来纳州罗利市作为比较点；在那里，相同的方法表明价钱和奖更加离散地分离。因此，我们的结果为激发该假设的语音理论提供了经验支持。