21. High-Mid and Low-Mid Back Vowels: ME /ọː/, ME /ɔː/, ME /ɔ/

Chapter 21 investigates the development of high-mid ME /oː/ (presented as [ọː] in this book) and the mid and low back ME /ɔː/ and /ɔ/. The chapter begins with a discussion similar to Chapter 17, also entitled “Principles and Obstacles,” focusing on the challenges of analyzing low-mid and low-back vowels and their phonemic values. The correspondence between IPA symbols and the actual sounds they represent is not always consistent and American and British phoneticians, for instance, have historically assigned different values to the same IPA symbols. This has contributed to a confusion between /ɔː/ and /ɒː ~ ɑː/, creating analytical difficulties extending over the past century. Wells (1988, 1990, 2005) and Roach (2012) examine the shifting values of /ɔ/, /ɔː/, /ɒ/, and /ɑː/ in British dialects and in General American. The uncertainty regarding the quality and quantity of low-mid and low vowels have been equally significant in diachronic analyses. These considerations extend from Chapters 21, 22 & 23 and I argue, for instance, that the Early Modern English (EME) reflexes of Taught words were /ɒː ~ ɑː/ rather than /ɔː/ which, as we see in Chapter 23, is an innovation.The second section examines the evolution of ME /ọː/ > /uː/ and its subsequent shortening and centralization to [ʊ] or [ɤ] in words such as “mood,” “wood,” and “blood.” These words are rhymed not only by eighteenth-century New England poets but also by English contemporaries going back to Shakespeare (e.g. moon ~ sun). Of special interest is the raising of ME /ɔː/ and ME /ɔ/ along a series of bridge vowels, from [o̞(ː)] > [ọ(ː)] > [uː], with examples going as far back as Chaucer (brood for “broad”, hoope for “hope”…). The chapter also discusses the progressive shortening and lowering of these vowels in certain word categories, progressing through [u] > [ʊ] > [ɤ] > [ɤ̞] and, lastly, [ʌ].This phonological development explains the apparent lack of cohesion in the spelling and pronunciation of words such as “move” and “prove,” “rove” and “drove,” “love” and “shove,” and “above,” all of which are rhymed by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English and New England poets, including Franklin. This analysis demonstrates that these are not merely “eye rhymes,” as has often been suggested. The combined evidence from orthoepists, colonial town records, New England poets’ rhyme schemes, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century English and American dialect data coalesces to answer many questions that have often been overlooked and explain a good number of so-called “imperfect” rhymes.