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Solving the actuation problem: Merger and immigration in eastern Pennsylvania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2009

Ruth Herold
Ruth Herold
Affiliation:
Université Charles-de-Gaulle, Lille 3
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Abstract

Data from fieldwork and a telephone survey is used to demonstrate that the merger of the vowels in words such as cot and caught, traditionally considered a defining characteristic of the speech of western Pennsylvania, is well established in the former anthracite mining towns of eastern Pennsylvania. Demographic and linguistic data indicate that the merger arose independently in the anthracite towns as a result of massive in-migration of speakers of Polish and other non-Germanic languages around the turn of the century. Having identified the proximate cause of the merger makes it possible to predict the presence or absence of the merger in various towns using demographic data alone.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , July 1997 , pp. 165 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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