Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 11:17:55 -0400

From: "M. Lynne Murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA

Subject: Re: waft and SAE



Isn't the relevant 'rule' governing WAFT that /a/ words after initial /w/ were

not fronted to or merged with /ae/? We have WATCH, WAD, WAFFLE, WAN, WASH &c,

with rounding in some words with /Vr/ WAR, WART, WARM.



you know, i learned this in ling 101, and forgot it. so i'm ashamed

to have queried it in the first place. (i'm just always primed for

semantic explanations.)



Could it be that WAFT is more

popular a word amongs Scots, Scots-Irish and Appalachians and only

a literary word in the north of the U.S.?



this seems wrong unless southerners pronounce all the wa- words with

an [ae]. rather, it seems it's gotten spelling pronunciation in the

south, and therefore it's there (in the south) that it's primarily

literary, since the northern pronunciation is phonologically

predictable. no?



lynne