Canadian raising in Manitoba: acoustic effects of articulatory phasing and lexical frequency

Abstract

This thesis examines the occurrence of Canadian Raising in Manitoba, using acoustic-spectral analysis. Factors such as lexical frequency and morphological complexity are examined to determine their role in Canadian Raising production within the sample population.

One of the key findings is that what are usually analyzed as “raised” phones in pre-voiceless context are considerably shorter than non-raised (pre-voiced) phones, but do not exhibit substantial differences in terms of vowel quality. A method of multiple-timepoint spectral analysis used to achieve this finding is described in detail.

Examination of raising-like diphthongs before /ɹ/ indicates that vowel duration differences exist in different contexts. There is some indication that morphological complexity is related to variants of “raised” phones, such that complex morphology is correlated with longer duration.