Diffusion of Merger: A Longitudinal Study

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Linguists have long observed that the sounds of a language change over time. One such sound change involves a process in which two distinct sounds disappear in a language--a process called "merger". For example, the "low back merger" describes the loss of contrast between the vowels in "cot" and "caught" in American English. Some speakers maintain a contrast in these two vowels, while other speakers do not. A standard claim is that mergers can occur within an individual over time. However, while numerous published studies have documented the occurrence of specific mergers and theorized on the causes and course of merger, there have been no published accounts testing this claim and clearly documenting the course of a merger within an individual. This project is a first-ever longitudinal study designed to determine whether "unmerged" speakers show signs of merger over time. The project takes place in suburban Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, and tests the claim about merger using recorded speech and other data obtained from subjects exposed to two ongoing mergers in that area, the "low back merger" (i.e. "cot" vs. "caught") and "pre-velar raising", where the stressed vowel in a word like "haggle" sounds similar to the one in "Hegel". Both mergers are changes in progress but are not completely established in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area. Participants include 13- to 15-year old students at a suburban junior high school, a population beyond the critical acquisition period but also of an age likely to be vulnerable to change. This group has received little attention in the area of sound change. The longitudinal study consists of collecting data at three times during the project period. The data to be collected consists of speakers being recorded saying a list of words, taking a listening task based on artificial vowel stimuli, and being recorded in a 10- to 20-minute semi-structured conversation. The current study is intended to establish a baseline for understanding early adult speech patterns. It will shed light on the process of sound change and advance our understanding of an important type of sound change in a way that integrates sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, and dialectology. The project is complemented by an outreach component in which university students will construct audiovisual and electronic media displays to introduce high school and junior high students to basic linguistic concepts. Other graduate students will be trained in sociolinguistic research methodologies. The project will add a large volume of publicly-available data to the discussion about how sound change works.