Æ-tensing

In the sociolinguistics of English, æ-tensing is a process that occurs in some accents of American English by which the vowel is raised and lengthened or diphthongized in various environments. The realization of this "tense æ" varies from [æ˔ˑ] to [ɛə] to [eə] to [ɪə], depending on the speaker's regional accent. The most common realization is probably [eə] (i.e. a centering diphthong with a starting point closer than the vowel [ɛ] as in dress); that transcription will be used for convenience in this article.

Phonemic æ-tensing in the Mid-Atlantic region

In Philadelphia and New York, the tense /eə/ is a separate phoneme from /æ/, since certain minimal pairs can be found:

• can /keən/ 'metal container' vs. can /kæn/ 'be able'
• halve /heəv/ vs. have /hæv/

Nevertheless, the distribution between /æ/ and /eə/ is largely predictable in the Philadelphia and New York regions: In Philadelphia, tense [eə] occurs in closed syllables before the /n/, /m/, /f/, /θ/, and /s/, as well as the words mad, bad, and glad. In New York, tensing occurs in all those environments as well as before voiced stops and /ʃ/. Lax [æ] usually occurs before /ŋ/, /l/, and voiceless stops, and also usually occurs in open syllables regardless of the following consonant.

The main exceptions to the above generalizations are:

1. When a vowel-initial word-level suffix is added to a word with tense /eə/, the vowel remains even though it has come to stand in an open syllable:

   mannish has /eə/ like man, not /æ/ like manage

   classy has /eə/ like class, not /æ/ like classic

   passing has /eə/ like pass, not /æ/ like passive

2. When a polysyllabic word with /æ/ in an open syllable gets truncated to a single closed syllable, the vowel remains:

   caf (truncation of cafeteria) has /æ/, not /eə/ like calf

   path (truncation of pathology) has /æ/, not /eə/ like path 'way, road'

   Mass (truncation of Massachusetts) has /æ/, not /eə/ like mass

3. Function words and irregular verb tenses have lax /æ/, even in an environment which would usually cause tensing:

   and (a function word) has /æ/, not /eə/ like sand

   ran (an irregular verb tense) has /æ/, not /eə/ like man

The phoneme /eə/ is also used in these accents before intervocalic /r/ in words like dairy and Mary and in non-rhotic varieties of these accents in words like square and scarce (which rhymes with glass for many non-rhotic speakers).

The phonemic tensing of æ is similar to the broad A phenomenon of certain other dialects. The environment of broad A overlaps with that of æ-tensing, in that broad A occurs before voiceless fricatives in the same syllable and before nasals in certain environments; and both phenomena involve replacement of the short lax vowel /æ/ with a longer and tenser vowel. However, the "broad A" is lower and backer than [æ], while the result of æ-tensing is higher and fronter.

Non-phonemic æ-tensing

In accents that have undergone the Northern cities vowel shift, the phoneme /æ/ is raised and tensed in all environments, to [eə] or even higher.

Most other dialects of American English display an /æ/ which is raised and tensed in some environments and lower and laxer in others, without splitting it into two contrasting phonemes as the New York and Philadelphia accents do. Geographically the most widespread is the "nasal system", in which /æ/ is raised and tensed to [eə] exclusively before nasal consonants, regardless of whether there is a syllabic or morphemic boundary present. The nasal system is found variously in speakers of the southern Midwest, northern New Jersey, and Florida, among other regions, but it is most prominent—that is, the difference between the two allophones of /æ/ is greatest, and speakers with the nasal system are most concentrated—in eastern New England (see Boston accent) as well as in Canada's Maritime provinces.

More widespread among speakers of the Western United States and southern Midwest is a "continuous" system. This resembles the nasal system in that /æ/ is usually raised and tensed to [eə] before nasal consonants, but instead of a sharp divide between high tense [eə] before nasals and low lax [æ] before other consonants, allophones of /æ/ occupy a continuum of varying degrees of height and tenseness between those two extremes, with a variety of phonetic and phonological factors interacting (sometimes differently in different dialects) to determine the height and tenseness of any particular example of /æ/. For some speakers with continuous systems, particularly in Canada and the northern and northwestern United States, a following /g/ tenses an /æ/ as much as or more than a following nasal does; in much of Minnesota and Wisconsin, this extends to the point that /æ/ actually merges with /eɪ/ before /g/, so that flag rhymes with plague.

In the Southern United States, the pattern most characteristic of Southern American English does not employ æ-tensing at all, but rather what has been called the "Southern drawl": /æ/ becomes in essence a triphthong [æjə]. However, many speakers from the South have the nasal æ-tensing system described above, particularly in Charleston, Atlanta, and Florida, and speakers from New Orleans have been reported to have a system very similar to the phonemic split of New York,

References

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