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The Vowel in Rather in New England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Herbert Penzl*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois

Extract

It seems to be a widely accepted opinion that the words father (<OE fæder) and rather (OE rather <*hrathor) have had an identical historical development since ME. Both words occur in the questionnaire of the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada. Both have been recorded regularly with rather placed in two entirely different contexts—“I'd rather go” and “rather cold.” The more than 400 records of the Atlas reveal conditions in present-day dialect. We shall try to establish, by comparing the vowel qualities as recorded in father and rather, whether the theories of the scholars are confirmed or not.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 1938, pp. 1186 - 1192
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1938

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