Covariation of phonological features in Standardised Scottish English

Abstract

Scottish English has characteristic phonological features including rhoticity, the /ʍ/‐/w/ contrast and the lack of the nurse merger. However, recent studies have found ongoing changes in Scottish English phonology such as the gradual loss of rhoticity, the merging of /ʍ/‐/w/ and a partial merger of the nurse vowels. This paper investigates possible covariation between these features across speakers of Standardised Scottish English. The speech of 30 speakers taken from ICE‐Scotland was analysed for their realisations of the nurse lexical set, <wh‐> and rhotics. Underlying structural covariation among these variables was investigated using Principal Components Analysis. The results show covariation between the overall rate of the traditional /ʍ/ variant and rhoticity but not with the realisation of nurse. More generally, Standardised Scottish English appears to comprise a range of individual covariation patterns that combine more traditional and more modern pronunciation variants to varying degrees.