Twentieth Century Sound Change in Washington DC African American English

Shelby Arnson, Charlie FarringtonContact: sarnson@uoregon.edu, crf@uoregon.eduUniversity of OregonNWAV 45, November 4

Sound Change within AAEThe view of the African American English (AAE) vowel system has largely been a synchronic one with comparisons to local European American English varieties (Yaeger-Dror & Thomas (eds.) 2010; Labov 2014; Wolfram & Kohn 2015)

Studies of sound change internal to an ethnic community are often limited to individual speakers or variables and not systems (Fought 2013; but see Thomas & Bailey 1998, Blake & Shousterman 2010)

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Sound Change within AAEImportant questions remain about diachronic change in AAE vowel systems and how they relate to local patterns

Today, we’re looking at sound change internal to Washington DC AAE

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Why Washington DC?Washington DC has a rich cultural history for African AmericansDC is a core Great Migration city with a steady majority African American population between 1960 and 2000.

4http://www.urban.org/urban-wire/demographic-change-washington-dc-taking-long-view

Why Washington DC?A diachronic study of DC AAE vowels can illustrate when and how the modern vowel system developed and if/how it changed as a result of the massive population increase

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Research QuestionsWhat role does the Great Migration play in the development of DC AAE vowel systems?

What was the vowel system like before the shift?How did it change? Patterns lost or gained?

Sound change internal to an ethnic community

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PREVIOUS WORK ON DC AAE

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Historical Evidence ~ DC AAE

Vowel Class Feature Example

/ɑʊ/BOUT nucleusraising “Severalmodernnovelsabout doctors.”(wds024,b.1931)

BOUDnucleusfronting “Isthis um,yourgown?”(wds046,b.1954)

/u/ VariablefrontingforbothBOOT/TOOT

/o/ VariablefrontingforBOAT

/ay/ BIDEglideweakening

/ɪn/~/ɛn/ PIN/PEN merger

(urr)centralization

MARY/MERRY/MARRY=MURRAY MURRGER

Putnam & O’Hern 1955; Kurath 1961; Thomas 2001, p.c.; Dorrill1986; Blake & Shousterman 2010; Carroll 1971; Luelsdorff 1975

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Modern DC AAETo contextualize modern DC AAE, we will look to the African American Vowel System (AAVS), a geographically widespread pattern (Thomas 2007; Koops& Niedzielski 2009; Kohn & Farrington 2013; Kohn 2014; Purnell 2010; Durian et al. 2010; Fridland 2003)

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African American Vowel System

Widespread geographic evidence for

Front lax vowel raisingNon-fronted high and mid back vowelsLittle evidence for low back vowel merger, possibly resulting from fronted BOTBIDE glide weakening/ monophthongizationPIN/PEN merger

AdaptedfromKohn(2014)

BEET

BIT

BAIT

BET

BAT

BOT

BOOT

BOAT

BOUGHT

BUT

BOOK

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Modern DC AAEThis vowel pattern is evident over much of the country as a result of the Great Migration (Thomas 2001)

So we’d expect it to be in DC

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AAVS in DC?• Recent studies by members of the Language and

Communication in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area (LCDC) project have looked at select vowels in DC AAE, which align to the AAVS

/ay/ (BIDE) monophthongization (Callier et al. 2009)PIN-PEN merger (Podesva 2011)Non-fronted back vowels and unmerged low back vowels (neighborhood specific) (Lee 2016)

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From Old to ModernWe’re interested in diachronic change in DC AAE vowels

We might expect some different kinds of change and stability based on vowel class

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Vowel Pattern Earlier DC

AAVS

BOUT nucleus raising + ?BOUD nucleus fronting (+) ?BOOT Fronting -/+ -BOAT Fronting -/+ -BIDE glide weakening + +PIN/PEN merger + +(urr) centralization (+) ?

Introducing CORAALData come from the Corpus of Regional African American Language (CORAAL)

This soon to be publically available corpus is under development at the Language Variation and Computation Lab at the University of Oregon

CORAAL currently consists of transcribed data from ~100 speakers born between 1890-1998

~ 1 million words of time-aligned text

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Introducing CORAALCore component consists of Washington DC speakers (corpus to be available 2017)

The DC component will be balanced for age, sex, and social class

Several other regional locales around the US will be included

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DataTwo Washington DC sub-corpora from CORAAL• WDS - Sociolinguistic interviews recorded in 1968

(Fasold 1972)• WDC - Sociolinguistic interviews recorded in 2015

(Kendall et al. 2015)Working Class MiddleClass

AgeGroup Corpus Year M F M F Totals

Under30WDS 1968 3 2 2 2 9WDC 2015 2 2 1 2 7

Over30WDS 1968 1 1 2 2 6WDC 2015 2 2 2 1 7

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Methods

Over 4500 vowels were hand measured in Praat(Boersma & Weenink2012) Measurements taken at vowel nucleus, midpoint and glide; Lobanov normalized (Kendall & Thomas 2010)

/i/ BEET

/ai/ BITE/BIDE

/æ/ BAT,BAN

/o/ BOAT,BOAR

/ɑ/ BOT

/ɔ/ BOUGHT

/ɪ/ BIT

/ei/ BAIT

/ɛ/ BET

/u/ BOOT,POOL

/ʊ/ BOOK

/ɚ/ BIRD/er/ MARY,/ɛr/ MERRY,/ær/ MARRY

/aʊ/ BOUT/BOUD

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RESULTS

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Results Road Map

Composite vowel plots by generation

BOUT/BOUDBack vowels(urr) Centralization

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/i/ BEET

/ai/ BITE/BIDE

/æ/ BAT,BAN

/o/ BOAT,BOAR

/ɑ/ BOT

/ɔ/ BOUGHT

/ɪ/ BIT

/ei/ BAIT

/ɛ/ BET

/u/ BOOT,POOL

/ʊ/ BOOK

/ɚ/ BIRD/er/ MARY,/ɛr/ MERRY,/ær/ MARRY

/aʊ/ BOUT/BOUD

BOUT/BOUD

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Generation 1 - BOUT/BOUD1968 interviews, speakers born between 1907 – 1939 (N=6)

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Generation 2 - BOUT/BOUD1968 interviews, speakers born between 1940 – 1956 (N=9)

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Generation 3 - BOUT/BOUD2015 interviews, speakers born between 1954 – 1978 (N=7)

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Generation 4 - BOUT/BOUD2015 interviews, speakers born between 1988 – 1998 (N=7)

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BOUT Loss of Virginia Raising

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BOUD

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BACK VOWELS

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Generation 1 - Back Vowels1968 interviews, speakers born between 1907 – 1939 (N=6)

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Generation 2 - Back Vowels1968 interviews, speakers born between 1940 – 1956 (N=9)

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Generation 3 - Back Vowels 2015 interviews, speakers born between 1954 – 1978 (N=7)

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Generation 4 - Back Vowels2015 interviews, speakers born between 1988 – 1998 (N=7)

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High and Mid Back VowelsTo summarize,

Modern speakers more influenced by AAVS with backed BOOT and TOOT (compared to earlier generations) BOAT retracted in middle generations, but fronted for G1/G4 (contra AAVS, but see Lee 2016)BOUGHT raising?

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(URR) CENTRALIZATIONThe Mary, Merry, Marry Murrger

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Generation 1 - (urr)1968 interviews, speakers born between 1907 – 1939 (N=6)

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Generation 2 - (urr)1968 interviews, speakers born between 1940 – 1956 (N=9)

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Generation 3 - (urr)2015 interviews, speakers born between 1954 – 1978 (N=7)

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Generation 4 - (urr)2015 interviews, speakers born between 1988 – 1998 (N=7)

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SUMMARY

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Diachronic Change in DCVowel Class Feature Early DC Gen.2 Gen.3 Modern DC

/ɑʊ/BOUT nucleus raising + (-) - -BOUD nucleus fronting (+) + + +

/u/ BOOT Fronting -/+ (-) (-) -/o/ BOAT Fronting -/+ (-) (-) +/ay/ BIDE glide weakening + + + +/ɪn/~/ɛn/ PIN/PEN merger + + + +(urr) centralization

MARY/MERRY/MARRY=MURRAY MURRGER

(-) (-) (+) +

/ɔ/ BOUGHT raising - (+) + +

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ConclusionsWork looking at change internal to an ethnic community is important, but not necessarily always applicable

DC had a majority African American population for the latter half of the 20th century. And while that is decreasing, many African Americans are still in densely populated (segregated) neighborhoods

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ConclusionsBecause of that, it makes sense to look at sound change within DC AAE

As such, we see effects of the massive population change brought about by the Great Migration

The AAE speaking community in DC is undergoing changes that aren’t simply movements towards or away from an external norm like a monolithic AAVS, but rather represent the ongoing development of a regionally-based ethnolect.

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AcknowledgmentsRalph Fasold, Minnie Annan, Carlos Huff, Tyler Kendall, Mary Kohn, Erik Thomas, Michael J. Fox, and the LVC lab at UO for comments and suggestions.

National Science Foundation Grant BCS-1358724

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