The NURSENORTH Merger in Tyneside English Origin, Status and Reversal

1
The NURSE/NORTH Merger in Tyneside English
Origin, Status and Reversal

• Warren Maguire
• University of Newcastle
• w.n.maguire_at_ncl.ac.uk
• www.students.ncl.ac.uk/w.n.maguire
• www.ncl.ac.uk/necte

2
Overview

• Introduction to the NURSE/NORTH Merger
• The origin and history of the Merger
• Sociolinguistic analysis of the Merger
• Conclusions

3
What is a Merger?

• What constitutes a merger?
• Is a merger the property of individuals, of
  speech communities, or of a language?
• Can a merger be restricted? (geographically,
  historically, socially, etc.)
• Can a merger be variable?

4
Traditional Geordie Joke

• Geordie hurts his knee and decides to go and see
  the doctor about it. He says to the doctor
• Doctor, Ave gorra bad knee.
• The doctor examines Geordies knee and sees that
  its badly swollen. The doctor says to Geordie
• How bad is it? Can you walk?
• Geordie looks at the doctor and says
• Work? Wey, A can hardly waak man!
•  
• (adapted from Viereck 1966)

5
The NURSE/NORTH Merger(Wells 1982)

• In the broadest Geordie the lexical set NURSE is
  merged with NORTH, /??/ work w??k, first
  f??st, shirt ???t ( short). What is
  elsewhere a central vowel has undergone backing
  through the influence of /r/ ? which once
  followed. (p.374)
• It is the effect of uvular /r/ on a preceding
  vowel which has historically given rise to forms
  such as b???dz birds, w???mz worms in
  Northumberland the ? has not only coalesced
  with the vowel, making it uvularized, but has
  also caused it to be retracted from central to
  back. (pp.369-370)

6
History of the NURSE and NORTH Lexical Sets

• NURSE is derived from the historical sets NURSE,
  BIRTH, SERVE
• NORTH is derived from the historical sets FORCE,
  NORTH
• Note that eME /?r/ and lME /?r/ develop
  differently (DARK and SERVE respectively)

7
The Northumbrian Burr

• FM Oh aye well them's all on the charts. All
  them marks is all on the charts for guiding
  ships. The Longstone Light, Longstone Lighthouse,
• Int Oh aye.
• FM and the Inner Farne
• Int Aye.
• FM And then the Stag Rock that's only the three
  lights that flashes
• Int Aye
• FM round about Holy Island round about this
  coast.

8
Burr-Modification

• Uvulars are known to cause lowering and
  retraction cross-linguistically
• c.f. German diese di?z? vs. dieser di?z?
• The Northumbrian /r/ is a uvular fricative ?,
  which, as well as being produced at the back of
  the mouth, involves lip-rounding ... It is
  therefore to be expected that the Northumbrian
  ? will have even more backing and lip-rounding
  power than the r of R.P. (Beal 1985 41-42)
• Limits of Burr and Merger very similar, but
  not quite the same

9
Geography
Distribution of the NURSE/NORTH Merger
Distribution of the Burr (Påhlsson 1972)
10
Chronology of the Merger

• Found in dialect poetry and song throughout the
  19th century
• Consistently recorded in traditional dialect from
  the end of the 19th century and throughout most
  of the 20th century (Ellis (1889), Wright
  (1905), the Orton Corpus (1928-1939) and the SED
  (1962-1971)
• Can still be heard fairly regularly in
  Northumberland and Tyneside today, particularly
  in the speech of older working class males

11
19th Century Evidence for the NURSE/NORTH Merger

• The Newcastle Signs (Cecil Pitt, 1806)
• The Three Kings and Unicorn, Bulls Head, and
  Horse,
• Would prove, that the farther they went theyd
  fare worse.
• The Glister (William Armstrong, 1823)
• Thou mun run for a docter, the forst can be
  fund,
• For maw bellys a rang, an awm varry fast
  bund.
• Ellis (1889) South Shields (AA?) ???? in
  bird, church, corn, dirty, fir, first, fore,
  horn, lord, score, scourge, shirt, sword, third,
  thirty, turn, word, world, worm, worse

12
The NURSE/NORTH Merger in Traditional NbTE in
the 20th Century

• Peripheral Nhb appears to preserve more archaic
  variants
• ME /?r/ (both SERVE and DARK) is represented by
  ?? in NbTE, but only SERVE may have ??
• This follows the same division of ME /?r/ found
  in StE

13
Ortons Suggestion

• The current vernaculars in the county
  Northumberland are not necessarily pure. It is
  indeed beyond question that they have been
  corrupted to a large extent by extraneous
  influences, and that they have absorbed a great
  deal from Standard English in the course of the
  last four or five centuries. (Orton 1937128)
• Orton suggests that ?? in BIRTH and SERVE words
  (at least) is not the true native development,
  but is rather of non-native origin

14
Developing Ortons Suggestion

• ME /?r/ only becomes ?? in NbTE where /?r/
  becomes ?? in StE. Where StE has ?? for ME
  /?r/, so does NbTE
• Hence, ?? in SERVE (and perhaps BIRTH) appears
  to be derived from borrowing of early non-local
  /?r/ which, due to Burr-Modification, changed
  as follows
• /?r/ gt ?? gt ?? gt ??? gt ??
• c.f. the change of lettER
• /?r/ gt ?? gt ?? gt ?? (?)

15
An Irish English Origin for the NURSE/NORTH
Merger?

• The retraction of the NURSE vowel in
  TynesideEnglish may be a similar reflex to
  that found in some forms of Irish English
  (indeed, ?? is stereotypical in Irish
  pronunciations of words like sir and thirty).
  (Watt 1998123)

16
Evidence for a NURSE/NORTH Merger in Irish
English

• William Dean Howellss An Imperative Duty
  (1891) the word sir is represented as sor and
  first appears as forst in the speech of the
  Irish manservant
• Macafee (1996) bird/bord, burn/born (vb.),
  church/chorch, dirt/dort, further/ford(h)er,
  turf/torf, urchin/orchin

17
Assessing the Likelihood of Irish English
Influence

• When/Time does an explanation based on Irish
  English influence fit with the known chronology
  of the linguistic feature and of Irish
  immigration to the area?
• Where/Place does the geographical distribution
  of the linguistic feature fit with the
  geographical distribution of Irish immigration?
• What/Manner was the linguistic feature in
  question a feature of Irish English?

18
NURSE and NORTH Lexical Sets in Irish English
19
Modern Tyneside English

• In a less broad Newcastle accent, NURSE words
  have ?? or something similar, e.g. rounded
  centralised-front ø?. It appears that no
  hyper-correction of the type short ?ø?t
  occurs either the merger of NURSE and NORTH was
  never categorical, or speakers are unusually
  successful in sorting the two sets out again.
  (Wells 1982 375)

20
Data from the PVC (Watt and Milroy 1999)
21
Summary of the PVC Data

• The distribution of the retracted variant ??
  among male speakers (it is hardly used at all by
  women) suggests that it is recessive it is
  chiefly associated with older WC men (p.39)
• The front pronunciation ø? is particularly
  common in the speech of younger females
• Appears to confirms Wellss statement, but has
  there been a reversal of the NURSE/NORTH
  Merger?

22
Can Mergers Be Reversed?

• It is generally agreed that mergers are
  irreversible once a merger, always a merger.
  (Labov 1994 311)
• Given the right social conditions, it is
  reasonable to think that a distinction can be
  reintroduced into a speech community in a
  consistent way. (Labov 1994 342)
• Some frequency of hypercorrect forms is thus
  inevitable among those trying to learn a phonemic
  distinction not native to their own dialect.
  (Labov 1994 312)

23
Watt (1998)

• Reversal of the NURSE/NORTH Merger has occurred
  due to dialect contact, in this case with higher
  status forms of English within the same speech
  community, which had not merged the NURSE and
  NORTH lexical sets

24
The Tyneside Linguistic Survey

• 86 surviving interviews recorded in Gateshead in
  1970. The projected sample size was 150, but it
  is not known how many of these interviews were
  ever carried out. Speakers are identified by
  codes, e.g. G052
• Originally planned as a random stratified sample
  with extra speakers hand-picked from higher
  status areas to provide a greater coverage of
  non-localised speech types
• Now forms part of NECTE corpus (www.ncl.ac.uk/nect
  e)

25
Analysis of the TLS

• Primarily an auditory analysis, with some
  supporting acoustic analysis
• The research presented here analyses tokens for
  70 speakers
• All NURSE and NORTH tokens have been analysed,
  except for those words in which the vowel is
  final, and a number of weak forms such as
  of-course and sort-of

26
Social Make-up of the Sample
27
Numbers of Tokens

• Total number of tokens 3510
• Total NURSE tokens 2316
• Total NORTH tokens 1194
• Average NURSE tokens per speaker 33
• Average NORTH tokens per speaker 17

28
The NURSE Vowel

• Massive variation, both between speakers, and
  within the speech of individuals
• It varies from a back mid round vowel to a front
  mid vowel (round or unrounded), and everything in
  between
• G216 It tends to get worse than dirt and I still
  watch it.
• G044 It was one of the dirtiest places Ive been
  in, and the method they had of working was one of
  the worst.

29
The NORTH Vowel

• Less variation than for the NURSE vowel
• Typically a mid back round vowel (e.g. ??), or
  a centralised mid back rounded vowel (e.g. ??)
• G054 Oh aye, sometimes, I use a lot of Geordie
  expressions. I dont speak a lot of Geordie, you
  know.
• G323 I always say I was born a century too late.

30
Phonetic Parameters

• Frontness/backness seems to be the most
  significant factor in the variation of the NURSE
  and NORTH vowels
• Height appears to be less important
• Roundness is potentially significant for central
  and front variants of the NURSE vowel, but I do
  not discuss it here
• Length and other features, such as rhoticity,
  have not been analysed

31
Front/Back Scale

• As a result, all NURSE and NORTH vowels are
  classified on a discrete scale from front to
  back
• F - Front e.g. ??
• cF - Central front e.g. ø?
• C - Central e.g. ??
• cB - Central back e.g. ??
• B - Back e.g. ??

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Social Motivation for Variation in the NURSE Vowel

• Gender striking difference between the frequency
  of the various pronunciations for males and
  females
• Age younger speakers (from 17-30) have fewer
  back variants of the NURSE vowel
• Socio-economic status back variants of the NURSE
  vowel are restricted to speakers with a lower
  socio-economic status

34
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37
Social Motivation for Variation in the NORTH Vowel

• Gender no obvious gross difference between males
  and females
• Age there doesnt appear to be any obvious age
  effect
• Socio-economic status young middle class females
  appear to use more B variants, whilst cB is more
  frequent in the speech of their working class
  counterparts

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41
Merger or Non-merger?

• Given the degree of variation in the NURSE and
  NORTH vowels, what is the status of the reported
  NURSE/NORTH Merger in the TLS corpus?
• Was the NURSE/NORTH Merger a near merger?
• If it was a merger, how has it been reversed?

42
Non-merger (individual speakers)
43
Merger or Near-merger (individual speakers)
44
Between Merger and Non-merger(individual
speakers)
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47
Summary of the TLS Data

• 43 speakers (61.5) no merger 8 speakers
  (11.5) merger or near merger 19 speakers
  (27) some overlap of the NURSE and NORTH
  lexical sets
• The NURSE/NORTH Merger was indeed a merger (in
  production at least) for some speakers in the TLS
• The NURSE/NORTH Merger is characteristic of
  older working class males. Greatest phonetic
  differentiation of the two lexical sets is
  characteristic of young middle class females

48
Is the NURSE/NORTH Merger a Merger?

• Depends what we mean by merger
• NURSE and NORTH are pronounced the same by some
  speakers
• We do not know how these speakers perceive the
  two lexical sets
• Many speakers in the community do not pronounce
  NURSE and NORTH the same, or at least only do so
  some of the time
• The Merger is restricted geographically,
  socially and historically

49
Has the NURSE/NORTH Merger Been Reversed?

• Depends what we mean by merger
• Since it is well reported historically, but
  largely restricted to WC males in the TLS and
  older WC males in the PVC, it appears that the
  merger is being lost, i.e. reversed
• There is some evidence for hypercorrection of
  NORTH (i.e. centralised pronunciations), but on a
  narrower phonetic scale than suggested by Wells

50
What is a Merger?

• The term merger covers a range of different
  phenomena, from complete collapse of a
  phonetic/phonological distinction within a
  language, to partial, or even variable, loss of
  phonetic/phonological distinctions, restricted
  geographically, historically and socially
• If a merger must be complete within a language,
  then the NURSE/NORTH Merger is not a merger. If
  the term merger encompasses partial or variable
  loss of distinctions, restricted geographically,
  historically and socially, then the NURSE/NORTH
  Merger is as good a candidate for merger as any
  other

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54
Warren and Hay (2004)

• Since the merger is ongoing within the
  community at large, it is inevitable that our
  participants will have encountered both merged
  and non-merged systems part of this experience
  involves developing knowledge (explicit or
  implicit) of the kinds of speakers who do or do
  not have a merged system. As a consequence of
  their experiences, our participants have
  developed something of a hybrid system, where
  their own merged production system exists
  alongside a perceptual system that is sensitive
  to characteristics of the speaker. (p. 26)