Complicating prevelar raising in the West

Abstract

Prevelar raising and fronting has been documented as a “defining feature” of Pacific Northwest English yet its status nearby in California remains unclear. This paper investigates prevelar raising/fronting across four Californian field sites. Examining wordlist data from 276 white speakers, and sociolinguistic interview data from 64 white speakers, the current study shows that - contrary to previous assumptions - prevelar conditioning is not confined to the Pacific Northwest, but extensive throughout California. Results suggest that, in line with previous work in Washington and Oregon, this prevelar pattern is also on the decline among younger Californians, although the trajectory of change appears to differ from that observed in Washington (e.g. Riebold 2015). This paper complicates the notion of prevelar tensing, showing that F1 and F2 are not always operating in tandem: speakers who raise BAG, for example, do not always front BAG to the same degree, and vice versa. As this is yet more evidence that the West is broadly participating in similar vocalic patterns, this study tentatively explores historical migration events as one possible source for the contemporary Western vowel system.