230158 Shifts and Mergers in English (S) (SoSe 2025)

In this class we will look at different phonetic shifts and mergers. We'll start with Grimm's Law, Verner's Law, and continue with the Great Vowel Shift, which is the most momentous chain shift in EModE, and look at its consequences such as, for example, the foot-strut-split. We'll also look more closely at southern shifts in Great Britain, the American South as well as the Southern Hemisphere (long vowels and diphthongs in AusE, short vowels in White South African English, and vowels of WAfrE and EAfrE in comparison to RP), the pin-pen merger, a hallmark of English in the American South, the Northern Cities Chain Shift around the Great Lakes in the US, a current and ongoing shift, the California Shift, and the Canadian Shift as well as Canadian Raising. The basis of all of those shifts are Labov's principles of chain shifting; these lay the theoretical foundation for our class. And, finally, we'll also look at the low-back-merger in the US.

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