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Is [nuz] really the new [njuz]? Yod dropping in Toronto English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2022

KATHARINA PABST Open the ORCID record for KATHARINA PABST [Opens in a new window]
KATHARINA PABST*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics University of Toronto Sidney Smith Hall, 4th floor 100 St George Street Toronto ON M5S 3G3 Canada katharina.pabst@mail.utoronto.ca
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Abstract

This article investigates yod dropping, i.e. the loss of the onglide after the coronals /t, d, n/, in Toronto English. Previous research has shown that this change is almost complete in Canadian English. However, most work has drawn on self-reported data rather than actual speech, and few studies have taken word frequency into consideration, although it has been shown to play a major role during earlier stages of the change. Combining auditory and acoustic analysis of production data from 20 speakers from the Greater Toronto Area, this study confirms that the change towards the yod-less pronunciation is largely complete. As in other varieties, there is considerable acoustic overlap between test words that historically had yod (new) and those that did not (too). This highlights the need to move away from predetermined cut-off points for determining yod presence, which are common in previous work, and find diagnostics that will allow us to distinguish between yod retention and /u/-fronting, another change that is currently underway in Canadian English (see also Roeder et al. 2018). Possible solutions are discussed.

Keywords

yod dropping/u/-frontingToronto English
Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 2023 , pp. 1 - 22
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author, 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I gratefully acknowledge financial support from the government of Ontario and the University of Toronto Department of Linguistics (Ontario Trillium Scholarship 2016–20, SSHRC Institutional Grants 2017–18 and 2018–19). Earlier versions of this article were presented at NWAV 48, the 2019 Montreal–Ottawa–Toronto Phonetics/Phonology Workshop and the 2019 Buffalo–Toronto Workshop. I would like to thank Yoonjung Kang, Jessamyn Schertz, Jack Chambers, Nathan Sanders, Márton Sóskuthy, Thomas St Pierre, Lex Konnelly, Pocholo Umbal, Jessica Jeung, the LVC Research Group at the University of Toronto, Patrick Honeybone and several anonymous reviewers for feedback on the ideas presented here. All remaining errors are my own. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to Timothy Gadanidis, Daniel Milway, Julianne Doner and Zoe McKenzie for their help with recruitment, and to Alexandra D'Arcy, Erin Hall, Pocholo Umbal and Ruth Maddeaux for sharing research findings and materials with me. Finally, I would like to thank the International Society for the Linguistics of English for recognizing an earlier version of this article with the 2019 Richard M. Hogg award and to the ISLE 6 organizing committee for inviting me to present my findings at their conference.

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