Prevelar Raising in California

All Vowel Productions, by Region

All Vowels, by Individual Talker

Overlap of VAGUE & LEG, by Individual Talker

Pillai Scores, by Region

VAGUE-LEG vs. DRESS-LEG Correlation

Models for Pillai Score ~ Region

Examples of Speakers

All Vowel Productions, by Region

Productions of FACE, VAGUE, LEG, DRESS, BAG, and TRAP vowels are separated by region: Northern California, Southern California, and Central Valley. Labels are placed at the mean F1 & F2 for each region.

All Vowels, by Individual Talker

Productions of FACE, VAGUE, LEG, DRESS, BAG, and TRAP vowels are separated by individual speaker. Labels are placed at the mean F1 & F2 for each participant

No evidence for BAG raising in these Californian speakers
Evidence for some speakers raising LEG and/or lowering VAGUE...

Overlap of VAGUE & LEG, by Individual Talker

Some speakers show very distinct VAGUE and LEG
- Others show moderate overlap
- A few speakers, such as NorCal's 539596, show essentially complete overlap, suggesting a VAGUE-LEG merger in production in some speakers

Pillai Scores, by Region

We can calculate Pillai Scores for how much VAGUE & LEG overlap (see previous chart) and then plot these scores by region.

Marginal effect for Region predicting Pillai score, p = 0.0536
- i.e. very close to statistically signifiant that NorCal has more VAGUE-LEG overlap than does SoCal or Valley
- (SoCal and Valley are not significantly different from each other)

VAGUE-LEG vs. DRESS-LEG Correlation

A Pearson correlation test shows that greater VAGUE-LEG overlap correlates with lesser LEG-DRESS overlap, p = 0.006, suggesting that within shifted speakers, LEG is becoming more like VAGUE and less like DRESS

Models for Pillai Score ~ Region

Examples of Speakers

A few months ago, I stumbled upon these videos of speakers from Wisconsin producing BAG and VAGUE vowels. They show how individual speakers can vary significantly in how much these vowels are raised and diphthongized, even in the same geographic location where this sound change is well established.