ABSTRACT

A merger exists in Australian English in which /el/ is realized as [æl] for a number of speakers, particularly in Victoria. There have also been some observations of /æl/ raising to [el], termed “transposition”. Although thought to be characteristic of older speakers, empirical evidence for transposition is scant. Here we report the discovery of substantive degrees of merging in thirteen older speakers, aged between 51 and 80, from Ocean Grove, Victoria. Auditory and acoustic methods showed bidirectional vowel movement, with speakers converging on both the /æ/ and /e/ phonemes. Increasing velarization of the lateral has been posited as a factor in the development of the merger in Victoria, and thus /l/ quality was also investigated, with null results in terms of direct factors. The lateral, however, was shown to be dark in both syllable onset and coda positions, with evidence for /l/ being clearer in this age group when compared with younger speakers. Lexical frequency and orthography were also investigated as factors, the latter showing a significant effect and suggesting a role for velarization as a contrast maintenance strategy.

摘要

澳大利亚英语中存在一个合并，其中 /el/ 对于许多说话者，特别是在维多利亚州，被实现为 [æl]。也有一些观察将 /æl/ 提升到 [el]，称为“换位”。虽然被认为是老年说话者的特征，但换位的经验证据很少。在这里，我们报告了来自维多利亚州 Ocean Grove 的 13 名年龄在 51 至 80 岁之间的老年说话者的实质性合并程度的发现。听觉和声学方法显示双向元音运动，扬声器会聚在 /æ/ 和 /e/ 音素上。越来越多的侧翼被认为是维多利亚合并发展的一个因素，因此还对 /l/ 质量进行了调查，在直接因素方面的结果为零。然而，横向 被证明在音节起始位置和结尾位置都是暗的，与年轻的说话者相比，这个年龄段的 /l/ 的证据更清晰。词汇频率和拼写法也作为因素进行了研究，后者显示出显着的影响，并表明 velarization 作为对比维持策略的作用。