# pronunciation: /ɔː/phoneme in US English



## TheCrociato91

Hello everybody,
First off, I hope this topic hasn't been discussed yet. I've look through the threads with a similar title and haven't found anything of this sort.

My question is exclusively concerned with US English phonetic transcription, but anyone is of course free to join in the discussion.

My question is about the phoneme /ɔː/. I cannot understand how it can represent (all by itself) two very different ways to pronounce the "o" vowel and why there is no need to use two different phonetic symbols to symbolize two different sounds.
The two sounds I'm talking about are:
1) the /ɔː/ as in "thought", "talk", "bought"
2) the /ɔː(r)/ as in "more", "force".
I placed the "r" in brackets as I'm aware of the non-rhotic US English accents.

As you notice, the two "o's" do sound different. Why then is there only one phoneme designed to represent those two sounds? (When e.g., there are all sorts of different phonetic symbols for all vocal sounds).

P.S. I'm typing from a mobile device, so I am sorry if I there are any typos.

Note: 
People who are interested in a general explanation of what a phoneme is and the issues involved in identifying a phoneme, should see: What is a phoneme?
Cagey, moderator


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## Keith Bradford

TheCrociato91 said:


> ...
> 
> As you notice, the two "o's" do sound different. ...


Not to me they don't - they're identical.

But there may be American regional accents where they do sound different, and it's not really possible for a dictionary to give every variant.


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## TheCrociato91

Yes, I'm aware that doesn't apply to UK English. As a matter of fact, it's "easier" to read and interpret a phonetic transcription in UK English since those two sounds are represented *and also pronounced* the vary same way.


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## Keith Bradford

No, what I meant was that I don't hear any difference when an American pronounces them, either (rhotics apart).


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## natkretep

They are identical for me too. I think they are identical for _some_ AmE speakers. That is always going to be the problem when you want to use one symbol to represent a phoneme where there is social and regional variation.


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## TheCrociato91

I'm fairly sure they do sound different, at least to me.
The "o" as in "more" is basically pronounced the same as in UK English, while the "o" in "thought" is way opener and it's similar to the "o" which UK speakers pronounce in "top".
I'm talking general "standard" accents, I know there can be even very significant differences.


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## Loob

Not all American English transcriptions use that symbol, Crociato - see eg the pronunciation guide for the _Oxford Advanced American Dictionary:_

In the written pronunciations, the following symbols are used:
...
ɑ hot /hɑt/  
ɔ saw /sɔ/​


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## TheCrociato91

The "o" in "hot" is a different "o" though (it's represented as the "a" sound in "father") at least according to the "standard" US English transcriptions.
My question is about the "o" in "thought", "brought" being represented the same as in "more" although to me they sound different. (For example by listening to the spoken pronunciation of this dictionary)


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## natkretep

I listened to _sought_ and _sort_ in the WR dictionary. Both sound identical in the British pronunciations, of course. It's clear to me that the British /ɔː/ is different from the American /ɔː/. I think there is more lip rounding in the British version, and the vowel is further back in the American version. However, I don't hear much difference in the quality of vowel of American _sought_ and American _sort_, and it makes sense to me (for this particular American accent) to have the same IPA symbol used for both words.

You hear things differently?


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## TheCrociato91

natkretep said:


> However, I don't hear much difference in the quality of vowel of American _sought_ and American _sort_,



To me they are as different as night and day.
"Sought" is an open "o", an US English "aw" sound if you wish, while "sort" to me is a closed vowel as in "more".
I agree though that in UK English they sound very similar if not identical. (*Not all *UK accents are the same of course)


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## Keith Bradford

I wonder which particular speaker(s) you're talking about?  Even we Brits who only get our information from films can identify three or four different regional American accents.


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## TheCrociato91

I feel like most Americans I've spoken to or heard talking pronounce the two sounds as I've just described, that is very different to me. I can try bringing to mind where from some of them where: one from Ohio, one from around Baltimore, others from the West Coast (California if I recall correctly), finally a couple from Minnesota. To me, they all pronounced those sounds distinctly different.

Far be it from me to say that all US speakers pronounce them differently.
My question was simply: given that (to me at least) those two "o" sounds are pronounced differently, why is there only one phoneme to represent them?


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## entangledbank

There is one symbol [ɔ]. This doesn't mean that it's pronounced exactly the same in all positions, but only that [ɔ] is the closest IPA symbol to the sounds. The IPA symbols for rounded non-high back vowels are that, [o], and [ɒ]. People who notate [sɔrt] and (cot-caught split) [sɔ:t] with the same vowel symbol (which is all dictionaries and other references I've ever seen), think the sound in each is closer to [ɔ] than to [ɒ] or to [o]. It doesn't mean they're exactly the same. The presence of the [r] might make a small difference. I've never noticed any large difference though. The choice of symbols seems right to me, in both words.


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## TheCrociato91

Thanks for your explanation.



entangledbank said:


> The choice of symbols seems right to me, in both words


I'm not questioning the correctness of the transcriptions.

Maybe the difference is not as big as I'm hearing it. 
I was just doubtful as to why there are so many specific IPA symbols for vowels but only a single one to account for two sounds which I believe to be very different.
But you're probably right, the "r" definitely makes a difference there.


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## Oddmania

Hi,

What an interesting question! Just like TheCrociato91, I've always heard two different sounds when American speakers say _awe _and _ore_. (but, well, it wouldn't be the first time my ears failed me).

Take the pair *cost* and *course*. In "cost", I hear a wide-open-mouth _*aw* _(or possibly _*ah*_) sound, while the sound I hear in "course" is much rounder, closer to a [o] than a [ɔ]. Do they sound identical to you? To me, these two words sound as different in AmE as they do in BrE (and yet, the dictionary uses /ɔ:/ for both words in American English). I hear the very same difference in _caught _and _court, flaw _and _floor, law _and _lord_, etc.

I poked around a little bit and found a group of lexical sets on Wikipedia. Apparently, the phonetician John C. Wells didn't think those two sounds were identical either:

*KEYWORD____R.P.____GenAmE____Example words*
FORCE..............._ɔː_________or............floor, coarse, ore, oral
THOUGHT.............ɔː_________ɔ*........._.taut, hawk, broad

* not followed by /r/​


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## entangledbank

Ah, now that's a different matter. You've missed out the NORTH set (war, storm, for, aural), GenAm symbol /ɔr/. Historically the NORTH and FORCE sets had different origins, and they are still generally distinct in Scottish and Irish accents. For them, horse and hoarse are different, /ɔr/ and /or/. But for most English and American accents, they are the same. Look down at the detailed tables below the first table, and compare them.


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## natkretep

Ah, that refers to something else. (I will disregard _cost_ because even in BrE that has a different vowel from _course_.)

See English-language vowel changes before historic /r/ - Wikipedia


> The *horse–hoarse merger* or *north–force merger* is the merger of the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/ before historic /r/, making pairs of words like _horse_–_hoarse_, _for_–_four_, _war_–_wore_, _or_–_oar_, _morning_–_mourning_ etc. homophones. This merger occurs in most varieties of English. In accents that have the merger, _horse_ and _hoarse_ are both pronounced [hɔː(ɹ)s], but in accents that do not have the merger _hoarse_ is pronounced differently, usually [hoɹs] in rhotic and [hoəs] or the like in non-rhotic accents.



Some American accents have different vowels for _force_ and _north_.

_Cross-posted_


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## Oddmania

natkretep said:


> (I will disregard _cost_ because even in BrE that has a different vowel from _course_.)


That was my point, though 

_Caught_ and _court_ (or _sought _and _sort_) have the same vowel sound in BrE, so as a speaker of BrE the vowels sound identical to you, even in AmE.
However, the vowels in _cost _and _course _are completely different from each other in both varieties of English, so they sound nothing alike to you, whether in AmE or BrE.

I may be wrong in my perception, but I've always made distinction, in General AmE, between the vowel sound you hear in "cost, caught, call" ("aw") and the one you hear in "course, court, core" ("ore"). People even sometimes write _wash _and _dog _as "worsh" and "dorg" to mock the way some American speakers with a regional accent pronounce the vowel in these words. That doesn't mean they pronounce it with an _R_, of course. The _R_ is only there to indicate something about the vowel. Adding an _R_ makes the vowel rounder.

If a North American speaker with the _cot-caught_ merger pronounced _caught _and _court _with the same vowel sound, that would mean _court _and _cart _would sound identical!


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## entangledbank

Well of course we have to disregard the roughly half the AmE speakers who have the cot-caught merger. We're talking about the other half, who have something like [ɔ] "aw" in _caught_. And the words that have this don't exactly match the BrE _caught_ set. For example, _coffee_ is [kɔ:fi], whereas BrE has [ɒ] in this. I presume the same is true for _cost_, which is why it's been mentioned in the first place.


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## Truffula

I've wondered this myself since even with the "cot-caught merger" I pronounce the vowels in say "la" and "law" differently, and I think the first is ɑ and the second is  ɔ.  But I also pronounce the vowel in "lore" differently than the one in "law" so I guess that's where the ɔː comes in... which is to say, the answer to the original question is "Some American accents use ɔ instead of ɔː when not followed by an 'r' hence the difference you are hearing"  - does that sound right?


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## TheCrociato91

Truffula said:


> "Some American accents use ɔ instead of ɔː when not followed by an 'r' hence the difference you are hearing



Thanks for chipping in.
So what you're saying is that [ɔ] is a different sound than [ɔ:] and is *not *just the "prolonged version" (excuse my trivialized language) of the same phoneme?

I do understand that it's the "r" what makes a difference here.


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## Keith Bradford

The more we look into this, the less clear it becomes!  Because I've just read in Oddmania's #18: _I've always made distinction, in General AmE, between the vowel sound you hear in "*cost, caught, call*" ("aw") and the one you hear in "course, court, core" ("ore")_.

Now, for me there's a great gulf between *cost *on the one hand and _*caught-call* _on the other.  Do some Americans pronounce them the same then?  If I try to pronounce *caught *using the *cost *vowel, it sounds more like *cart*, which I don't think is what Americans say.  And if I try _*caught, call* _using the *cost *vowel, they become _cot _and _col_.  Has Oddmania made a mistake, or is it me?


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## TheCrociato91

Keith Bradford said:


> If I try to pronounce *caught *using the *cost *vowel, it sounds more like *cart*, which I don't think is what Americans say.



I think that's one way American would pronounce it, that is, by using the [ɔː] in both cases, while the standard UK pronunciation for them would be /kɒst/ vs /kɔːt/.
(However, with the [ɔː] sound being pronounced differently from the US [ɔː], which makes little sense to me why this is the case)

Same goes for "call", which is phonetically represented as /kɔːl/ in both BrE and AmE but is definitely pronounced differently (which again makes little sense to me; I get those are two different pronunciation types, but why do you have phonemes like [ɒ] that only exist in UK English but we have the same phoneme [ɔː] to represent such different sounds in UK and US English?)

Going back to "call", I'd describe the BrE version as a long "o" in words like "more", while I'd describe the "American way" to be pronounced more or less as the British "o" sound in a word like "cot").

The word "cart", on the other hand, has the [ɑː] sound, which is different, and is used by Americans in words such as "hot"
(cfr. BrE /hɒt/ vs NAmE /hɑːt/) and by both Brits and Americans in words like "father".

As always, I'm making reference to _standard accents._

I'm probably adding to the confusion I myself created. Sorry about that.


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## JulianStuart

Keith Bradford said:


> The more we look into this, the less clear it becomes!  Because I've just read in Oddmania's #18: _I've always made distinction, in General AmE, between the vowel sound you hear in "*cost, caught, call*" ("aw") and the one you hear in "course, court, core" ("ore")_.
> 
> Now, for me there's a great gulf between *cost *on the one hand and _*caught-call* _on the other.  Do some Americans pronounce them the same then?  If I try to pronounce *caught *using the *cost *vowel, it sounds more like *cart*, which I don't think is what Americans say.  And if I try _*caught, call* _using the *cost *vowel, they become _cot _and _col_.  Has Oddmania made a mistake, or is it me?


Somewhat relevant to the confusion over trying to represent these particular sounds by saying "It's like the XYZ sound in the word ABXYZCD" is my first experience with voice recognition on an iPhone:  I said, with my southern BE vowels for both, the word "podcast".  It was transcribed by the phone, presumably trained to recognize AE as "pawed cost"  illustrating the general lack of BE's short o and broad a in AE.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

Keith Bradford said:


> Now, for me there's a great gulf between *cost *on the one hand and _*caught-call* _on the other.  Do some Americans pronounce them the same then?



In my accent (New York City metropolitan) they are the same.


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## JulianStuart

Keith Bradford said:


> The more we look into this, the less clear it becomes!  Because I've just read in Oddmania's #18: _I've always made distinction, in General AmE, between the vowel sound you hear in "*cost, caught, call*" ("aw") and the one you hear in "course, court, core" ("ore")_.
> 
> Now, for me there's a great gulf between *cost *on the one hand and _*caught-call* _on the other.  Do some Americans pronounce them the same then?  If I try to pronounce *caught *using the *cost *vowel, it sounds more like *cart*, which I don't think is what Americans say.  And if I try _*caught, call* _using the *cost *vowel, they become _cot _and _col_.  Has Oddmania made a mistake, or is it me?


Cot–caught merger - Wikipedia with links to maps of regional distribution


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## TheCrociato91

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> In my accent (New York City metropolitan) they are the same


Perfect, that is in keeping with the following trascriptions: /kɔːt/, /kɔːl/ and /kɔːst/. All of them include the [ɔː] sound.

The very same sound is used in words like "more" or "force", although it is my opinion that the [ɔː] sound is different.

Do you feel like you're pronouncing the same "o"?


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## Cenzontle

Are we all on the same page with regard to "sounds" vs. "phonemes"?  About the difference between [ɔ] and /ɔ/?
Crociato, you've said two different things:
First you said:


> My question is exclusively concerned with [...] *phonetic *transcription


But then you said:


> My question is about the *phoneme */ɔː/.


You asked "why there is no need to use two different phonetic symbols to symbolize two different sounds." 
Well, there *is* a need to use different *phonetic *symbols to represent different *sounds *(alias "phones") (depending on the breadth or narrowness of your transcription). 
But if two different sounds are *allophones *of the same *phoneme*, there is no need to use two different *phonemic *symbols.
When I first studied English phonology, I (like you) thought it was strange that "taught" and "tore" were given the same vowel phoneme,
because I (like you) heard a difference between the vowel phones (sounds)—and I still hear that difference. 
Probably I was influenced by the spelling in thinking that "tore" should have the same vowel phoneme as "tote". 
Besides, to my ear, words like "tore" have a vowel that is more like the *beginning *of the diphthong in "tote"—a higher, or more "closed" vowel—than it is like the vowel of "taught".  ("Tote" has an [ow] diphthong that is not in "tore".) 
But evidently phonologists opted, in their analysis, to give more significance to the difference between diphthong and pure vowel
than to the difference of vowel height between "taught" and "tore".
Bottom line:  There's no need for different *phonemic *symbols because there are no contrasting minimal pairs.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

TheCrociato91 said:


> Perfect, that is in keeping with the following trascriptions: /kɔːt/, /kɔːl/ and /kɔːst/. All of them include the [ɔː] sound.
> 
> The very same sound is used in words like "more" or "force", although it is my opinion that the [ɔː] sound is different.
> 
> Do you feel like you're pronouncing the same "o"?



My personal accent is not fully non-rhotic, but if I do intentionally make it non-rhotic like the accents of many of my friends and co-workers, then yes, it is the same.


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## RedwoodGrove

It's a very interesting discussion and what I can add so far is that Out West here _cot_ and _caught_ are pretty much the same sound while


TheCrociato91 said:


> 1) the /ɔː/ as in "thought", "talk", "bought"
> 2) the /ɔː(r)/ as in "more", "force".


are decidedly different.  Most of the Americans I interact with or hear through media, except those with strong accents from the Northeastern Seaboard (mainly urban) and parts of the South, are very rhotic. I think some old time East Coast transplants in Chicago are non-rhotic. My impression is that it's a fairly small minority who are non-rhotic across the entire population. I realize that is not the focus of the question in the OP, however, the issue has a great deal of effect on the pronunciation of the "o". Here's a Wikipedia article that covers it, just for the heck of it.

Rhoticity in English - Wikipedia


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## TheCrociato91

@Cenzontle
Thank you very much for your exhaustive answer. You've really enlightened me.
Admittedly, it is still kind of confusing to me that the /ɔ/ phoneme (and not phone, if I understood correctly):
- is produced differently in UK and US English *but only in some cases* (it's the same in "more", except for the possible non-rhoticity; it's different in "thought");
- is produced differently in US English* in some cases* which however feature the *same transcription* (as in /mɔːr/ and /θɔːt/, "more" and "thought").

I was already familiar with allophones, for example in Spanish, where they however get given a specific symbol to set them apart (usually different from the phoneme symbol)

@GreenWhiteBlue
So if you were to pronounce "more" in a non-rhotic fashion, it would sound like "maw", with the "aw" sound being the same as "Awesome"?
Thanks for weighing in.


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## Truffula

Now that I listen to the IPA sounds I am saying ɒ for "law" not ɔ.   So sound-wise (rather than phoneme-wise) 1) I use /ɒ/ as in "thought", "talk", "bought"
2) and /ɔ/ in "more", "force" - and phoneme-wise they are perhaps different and perhaps not.  I mean "maw" and "more" sound definitely different even if I leave the rhotic R sound off, but I never would because I'm basically 100% rhotic


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## GreenWhiteBlue

TheCrociato91 said:


> @GreenWhiteBlue
> So if you were to pronounce "more" in a non-rhotic fashion, it would sound like "maw", with the "aw" sound being the same as "Awesome"?


Yes, exactly.


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## TheCrociato91

@Truffula
That's a very wise distinction. The problem is that US _standard_ English does not include the /ɒ/ phoneme. It's either /ɔ/ (as in "more", but also as in "thought", despite sounding different) or /ɑː/ (as in "father", both UK and US English, and "hot", only US English).



> I mean "maw" and "more" sound definitely different even if I leave the rhotic R sound off


That's what my confusion arose from. Same IPA symbols, clearly different sound.

@RedwoodGrove


RedwoodGrove said:


> what I can add so far is that Out West here _cot_ and _caught_ are pretty much the same sound


and that's "logical" because they share the same phonetic transcription (which includes the /ɔː/ phoneme in both cases)



RedwoodGrove said:


> while ... "thought" and "more" .... are decidedly different.


They are to me too. Problem is, they *also* share the same phonetic transcription, which includes the /ɔː/ phoneme in both cases (altough as you just noted, they do not sound the same.
Thanks to @Cenzontle I now know they do not *need* to be produced the same way albeit being symbolized the same way. (which still makes little sense to me, but I'll live with that I guess  )


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## RM1(SS)

To me the vowels in bought and bore sound very different -- the latter is more like that in bow than the one in bought.


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## Forero

In my dialect, _cot_ has [ɑ], but _caught_ has [ɒ]. "Thought", "talk", and "bought" have the latter sound.

And in my dialect, _horse_ and _hoarse_ are identical in sound, and "more" and "force" have the same vowel, an [o].

One miminal pair for me is "aural", with [ɒ] as in "thought", vs. "oral", with [o] as in "more". The difference is phonemic, but it can be understood as due to different syllable boundaries rather than to different vowel phonemes. In my dialect, [ɒ] obligatorily becomes [o] before /r/ in the same syllable and _aural_ is no exception because _au_ is in a syllable by itself.

I don't use an actual [ɔ] or [ɔː] in any of these words.


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## TheCrociato91

Thanks for your answer, @Forero. Believe it or not, this is also how I see things when it comes to General AmE without the cot-caught merger (which seems to correspond to your dialect).

The main issue is that no official IPA transcription includes either [ɒ] or [o] for AmE (so I can't link to any source to back up my assumptions), although to my ears the difference between the "aw" sound is "thought" and "gore" is very noticeable, just like the difference between the RP "thought" vowel and the Gen AmE "thought" vowel, which are *all* represented as /ɔ/. 



Forero said:


> In my dialect, [ɒ] obligatorily becomes [o] before /r/ in the same syllable and _aural_ is no exception because _au_ is in a syllable by itself.



As far as I know, this is true for all words except for a few exception, including "borrow", "tomorrow", "morrow", and a couple other words which I can't remember. You pronounce those words with the [ɒ] sound, right?

Also, the rule you mentioned also works when [ɒ] is followed by /i/ as in "boy", "coy", and sometimes "lawyer". Am I correct?


I guess I'll have to put forward a reform for IPA somewhere down the line, that is, if no one else has already.


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## Forero

TheCrociato91 said:


> Thanks for your answer, @Forero. Believe it or not, this is also how I see things when it comes to General AmE without the cot-caught merger (which seems to correspond to your dialect).
> 
> The main issue is that no official IPA transcription includes either [ɒ] or [o] for AmE (so I can't link to any source to back up my assumptions), although to my ears the difference between the "aw" sound*s* i*n* "thought" and "gore" is very noticeable, just like the difference between the RP "thought" vowel and the Gen AmE "thought" vowel, which are *all* represented as /ɔ/.


It never sounds like [ɔ] in my dialect and maybe not in most dialects either, but [ɔ] is right between [ɒ] and [o], so /ɔ/ is a good enough symbol for something that is sometimes [ɒ] and sometimes [o].





> As far as I know, this is true for all words except for a few exception*s*, including "borrow", "tomorrow", "morrow", and a couple other words which I can't remember. You pronounce those words with the [ɒ] sound, right?


No. In my dialect these exceptional words all have [ɑ], not [ɒ]. (And "barrow", "marrow", and "narrow" have [ɛ].)





> Also, the rule you mentioned also works when [ɒ] is followed by /i/ as in "boy", "coy", and sometimes "lawyer". Am I correct?


In my dialect, all of these words have [ɒi̯]. "Lawyer" and "sawyer" look like they should have [ɒ] followed by [j], as in "law use" or "saw you", but we always say them only with the "oy" of "coy".





> I guess I'll have to put forward a reform for IPA somewhere down the line, that is, if no one else has already.


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## TheCrociato91

Forero said:


> It never sounds like [ɔ] in my dialect and maybe not in most dialects either, but [ɔ] is right between [ɒ] and [o], so /ɔ/ is a good enough symbol for something that is sometimes [ɒ] and sometimes [o].



I guess so. It had always seemed to me like an inaccurate generalization, but I imagine such a choice may be also viewed as a kind of compromise. What has always gotten me stumped is that IPA transcriptions tend to be super detailed when it comes to other sounds, whereas they simply throw in an /ɔ/, both in BrE and AmE, for any word like "thought", "more", etc.

Thanks again for providing your very interesting point of view, which confirms parts of my assumptions. And thank you for correcting my typos.


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## TheCrociato91

Forero said:


> In my dialect, [ɒ] obligatorily becomes [o] before /r/ in the same syllable and _aural_ is no exception because _au_ is in a syllable by itself.



Another question regarding the above has come to my mind.

How do _you _(and whoever else wants to chime in, of course) pronounce names such as "laurel", "(Jennifer) Lawrence" or "Laura"? With 
- [ɒr], 
- [ɑr] (this one I suppose only works for people with the cot-caught merger) 
- [or]?

I'm asking because I've heard different Americans pronounce it with any of those sounds. 

Thanks in advance.


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## JulianStuart

TheCrociato91 said:


> Another question regarding the above has come to my mind.
> 
> How do _you _(and whoever else wants to chime in, of course) pronounce names such as "laurel", "(Jennifer) Lawrence" or "Laura"? With
> - [ɒr],
> - [ɑr] (this one I suppose only works for people with the cot-caught merger)
> - [or]?
> 
> I'm asking because I've heard different Americans pronounce it with any of those sounds.
> 
> Thanks in advance.


For me, laurel and Lawrence have a short o as in lorrel and lorrrance while Laura is longer like borer (I do not have the cot caught merger and the short o is the BE o that is largely lacking in AE)


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## TheCrociato91

JulianStuart said:


> For me, laurel and Lawrence have a short o as in lorrel and lorrrance while Laura is longer like borer (I do not have the cot caught merger and the short o is the BE o that is largely lacking in AE)



Interesting. Thanks for providing your perspective. I understand you still pronounce them more like "the British way" (I'm generalizing, I know, but it's for the sake of simplification), at least according to what dictionaries say.

laurel: /ˈlɒrəl/
Lawrence /ˈlɒrəns/



JulianStuart said:


> the short o is the BE o that is largely lacking in AE


This specific part, which I'm trying to delve deeper into (as I'm not fully convinced about it), is the reason why I originally created this thread.


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## JulianStuart

TheCrociato91 said:


> This specific part, which I'm trying to delve deeper into (as I'm not fully convinced about it), is the reason why I originally created this thread.


The variabiity of sounds that can be repesented by the same IPA symbols is part of the problem in these threads, just as it is problematic to use other words to illustrate the sound of a given word/vowel. The short o I (and many other BE speakers) use is not present in the speech of many AE speakers, in my experience.


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## Forero

TheCrociato91 said:


> Another question regarding the above has come to my mind.
> 
> How do _you _(and whoever else wants to chime in, of course) pronounce names such as "laurel", "(Jennifer) Lawrence" or "Laura"? With
> - [ɒr],
> - [ɑr] (this one I suppose only works for people with the cot-caught merger)
> - [or]?
> 
> I'm asking because I've heard different Americans pronounce it with any of those sounds.
> 
> Thanks in advance.


My usual pronunciation of "or", "aur", and "awr" words is with [o], i.e. with _r_-colored [ɒ]. "Aural" and its derivatives "monaural" and "binaural" are exceptional because of the need to distinguish "aural" from "oral". Those _-orrow_ words are another exception.

I pronounce "laurel leaves" and "bay laurel" with unexceptional [o].

But proper names can be exceptions. I have known different people named "Lawrence" and "Laura", and I try to pronounce their names the way they do, which depends on the person. Where I live enough Lauras pronounce their name with [ɑ] that many people think "Lara" in "Dr. Zhivago" is the same name. And for some reason, "Laurel" of "Laurel and Hardy" and "Lawrence" of "Lawrence of Arabia" have "short _o_", like _borrow_ and _tomorrow_ ([ɑ]).

Most Lawrences call themselves "Larry", with [ɛ]. I don't know anyone named "Laurel".


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## TheCrociato91

JulianStuart said:


> The short o I (and many other BE speakers) use is not present in the speech of many AE speakers, in my ex



So, in your personal experience, do Californians _without the cot-caught merger_ pronounce the "aw" sound (I'm refusing the use IPA symbols at this point  ) as in "thought" in a way that is more similar to the dictionary pronunciation audio for "thought" in US or in UK English?

Not sure whether I expressed myself clearly enough.


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## TheCrociato91

Thanks again, @Forero.



Forero said:


> I have known different people named "Lawrence" and "Laura", and I try to pronounce their names the way they do, which depends on the person.



I think this is the best way to go about it when it comes to proper names.



Forero said:


> And for some reason, "Laurel" of "Laurel and Hardy" and "Lawrence" of "Lawrence of Arabia" have "short _o_", like _borrow_ and _tomorrow_ ([ɑ]).



I see. I understand that, at least in your regiolect, "aw" + "r" is pronounced in a way that retains the "pure" "aw sound" only in "aura" and its derivatives. Otherwise the "aw" + "r" turns to [or] or [ɑr].


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## Forero

TheCrociato91 said:


> Thanks again, @Forero.
> 
> 
> 
> I think this is the best way to go about it when it comes to proper names.
> 
> 
> 
> I see. I understand that, at least in your regiolect, "aw" + "r" is pronounced in a way that retains the "pure" "aw sound" only in "aura" and its derivatives. Otherwise the "aw" + "r" turns to [or] or [ɑr].


"Aural" is not derived from "aura". I grew up with the distinction between the words "oral" and "aural", but "aura" is something I first heard about after I grew up. I use [oə˞̯] in "aura".


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## TheCrociato91

Forero said:


> "Aural" is not derived from "aura". I grew up with the distinction between the words "oral" and "aural", but "aura" is something I first heard about after I grew up. I use [oə˞̯] in "aura".



My bad, I meant to say "aural" and its derivatives. Thanks again!


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