Rhymes talk:English/ɑːb

Hi TUF-KAT, I'm sorry to say it but it looks to me like you yourself have the cot-caught merger, or at least a cot-cart merger. All of the words on this page are actually with the "short o" sound (ŏ ɒ Q), except for "Saab" (ä ɑː A:) which does have the sound given in the pronunciation section and title for this page.

In fact all the words I can think of with this rhyme off the top of my head would be spelled with an "r", and therefore wouldn't count in rhotic accents. Except "Saab" - maybe there are a few other foreign borrowings I can't think of.

In fact in this case "sob" and "Saab" are a minimal pair. Are they homophones in your accent? &mdash; Hippietrail 00:39, 8 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I suppose they could just be moved to the relevant page with the short-o–b rhymes. However as this illustrates, indexing like this makes it difficult for people in merged areas to contribute to these pages—I almost made the same mistake? as TK but refrained—it's not entirely trivial for people in merged areas to know what vowels are /O/ and which are /A/ (for Americans the "cot" vowel is /O/, not /Q/), unlike the rhotic issue where phonemic length indicates where an r went.  (In any case I have issues with the entire classification, for its rather free use of /ː/ which in rhotic accents isn't phonemic...) —Muke Tever 01:43, 8 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree but you know most of us are merged. From a US point of view, Brits and Aussies merge the "barb" and "saab" sounds. But just because it's difficult doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. If we have separate pages for rhotic and non-rhotic, merged and non-merged, people can do their best to add to the pages for the accents they speak and leave other accents to people who speak those accents. After all it's difficult for me to contribute to Korean pages - so I just don't do it so much.


 * As for the use of "ː", perhaps on the pages that don't mix accents, these can be omitted if it's felt they do not represent those accents. Can you give me some examples of the "rather free" use?


 * From what I've read about US speech, Americans pronounce the "cot" vowel differently in different areas, ranging the whole gamut from what would be "cot" in non-merged accents, right up to what would be "caught". This makes it tricky.


 * In fact I've just realized it's messier than I thought for cot-caught people than it is for non-rhotic people since we don't have a way to separate the pages on a pronunciation basis. I think we should have three pages, clearly marked at the top: (ŏ ɒ Q) and (ô ɔː O:) for non-merged speakers, (o o o) for merged speakers. &mdash; Hippietrail 02:12, 8 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, I suppose by "rather free" I meant simply "in places I don't like". I'm used to the SAMPA phonematization for American, which doesn't mark length (though the one for English does).  We've already discussed phonemic representation before...


 * I am coming to agree with you on the need for separate pages. Though not (o o o) for mergeds, hopefully... it'd be something like (ä ɑ A) for the cot-caught vowel (if I'm understanding you correctly and that's AHD-IPA-SAMPA) though AHD symbolization is problematic, as the AHD signs are for a hypothetical maximal-distinctions dialect, and when your scope is merged dialects you run into trouble, as the most unambiguous signs are .  (ŏ ɑ A) maybe?  When American children are taught phonics, /ɑ/ is called "short o". (see  for an example... I even found a song about "short o" on this page that's all about opening your mouth for the doctor and saying /ɑːː/.)


 * Dangit, this is complicated, as reading your remarks on the variation in cot vowels, I just noticed the cot-caught merger is on an entirely different line that I realized, which probably invalidates the whole paragraph I just wrote. According to the American SAMPA page, the corresponding vowels for your ŏ /ɒ Q/ and ô /ɔː O:/ are /ɑ A/ and /ɔ O/... that is, you people have an entirely different vowel sound than I'd imagined at all, because you also have ä /ɑː A:/ which is our /ɑ A/, which means that the cot-caught vowel merger covers all three of your vowels, where I thought there were only two... Congratulations, you have ruptured my brain for the rest of the day, I think I hafta relearn everything all over again. >_<  —Muke Tever 03:39, 8 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it is a 3-way merger! Maybe just for some speakers? In England and Australia we have "cot" /kɒt/, "cart" /kɑːt/, and "caught" /kɔːt/ or, avoiding "r", "sob" /sɒb/, "Saab" /sɑːb/, "sauna" /sɔːnə/.
 * I'd like to comment on more of your response but I have to work soon )-: &mdash; Hippietrail 04:10, 8 May 2004


 * Yes, those are all the same vowel here: /ɑ/. —Muke Tever 20:58, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I suppose I do have this cot/caught merger -- I pronounce the two words identically. Obviously, all the words I put on this page rhyme with Saab. "Sob" and "Saab" are pronounced the same, and use the same vowel sound as the first in "sauna". 67.23.154.119 04:25, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Oops, I got logged-out, but TUF-KAT wrote that. 67.23.154.119 04:26, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
 * And as another addendum: "cart" doesn't have the same vowel sound as "cot" and "caught". TUF-KAT


 * (As far as I can make out) it's not a three-way merger we're dealing with but two two-way ones. There's COT-CAUGHT and there's FATHER-BOTHER .  North American English speakers tend to have at least one of these & usually both. Jimp 01:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)