Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-23T11:30:13.364Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Settlement patterns and the eastern boundary of the Northern Cities Shift

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2013

Aaron J. Dinkin
Aaron J. Dinkin*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
*
*Address for correspondence: Aaron J. Dinkin, Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto, Sidney Smith Hall, 4th floor, 100 St. George St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3. (Email: ajd@post.harvard.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the dialectology of eastern New York State. Data are considered from twelve cities and villages bridging the gap between the Inland North dialect region (home to the Northern Cities Shift [NCS]) and the Western New England region. Communities are classified as belonging to the Inland North “core,” the Inland North “fringe,” or a non–Inland North region. The settlement history of these communities is used to explain the boundaries between the dialect regions; presence of the NCS is found to correlate well with heavy migration from southwestern New England early in a community's history. Looking in detail at the different distributions of the individual sound changes involved in the NCS across the dialect regions established in this paper makes it possible to posit a reconstructed early history for the NCS and make hypotheses about the phonological character of the different sound changes.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistic Geography , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , June 2013 , pp. 4 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ash, Sharon. 2002. The distribution of a phonemic split in the mid-Atlantic region: Yet more on short A. U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 8(3): 1–15.Google Scholar
Bigham, Douglas. 2007. Vowel variation in southern Illinois. American Dialect Society (ADS). Anaheim, CA. Google Scholar
Boberg, Charles. 2000. Geolinguistic diffusion and the U.S. Canada border. Language Variation and Change 12(1): 1–24.Google Scholar
Boberg, Charles. 2001. The phonological status of Western New England. American Speech 76: 3–29.Google Scholar
Brown, William H. (ed.). 1963. History of Warren County, New York. Glens Falls, NY: Board of Supervisors of Warren County.Google Scholar
Campbell, Dudley M. 1906. A history of Oneonta. Oneonta, NY: G.W. Fairchild.Google Scholar
Cooper, James F. 1886 [1838]. The chronicles of Cooperstown. In Shaw, S.M.(ed.), A centennial offering: Being a brief history of Cooperstown, 9–61. Cooperstown, NY: The Freeman's Journal.Google Scholar
Dinkin, Aaron J. 2006. Unnatural classes and phonological generalization in dialect formation. New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 35. Columbus, OH.Google Scholar
Dinkin, Aaron J. 2009. Dialect boundaries and phonological change in Upstate New York. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania dissertation.Google Scholar
Dinkin, Aaron J. 2011a. Nasal short-a systems vs. the Northern Cities Shift. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 17(2): 71–80.Google Scholar
Dinkin, Aaron J. 2011b. Weakening resistance: Progress toward the low back merger in New York State. Language Variation and Change 23(3): 315–345.Google Scholar
Dinkin, Aaron J. 2012. Cooperstown, New York as a site of new-dialect formation. New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 41. Bloomington, IN.Google Scholar
Dinkin, Aaron & Labov, William. 2007. Bridging the gap: Dialect boundaries and regional allegiance in Upstate New York. Penn Linguistics Colloquium (PLC), 31, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Durant, Samuel W. 1878. History of Oneida County, New York. Philadelphia: Everts & Fariss.Google Scholar
Donlon, Hugh P. 1980. Amsterdam, New York: Annals of a mill town in the Mohawk Valley. Amsterdam, NY: Donlon Associates.Google Scholar
Emerson, Oliver F. 1891. The Ithaca dialect: A study of present English. Boston: J. S. Cushing & Co.Google Scholar
Farquhar, Kelly Y. & Haefner, Scott G. 2006. Amsterdam. Charleston, SC: Arcadia.Google Scholar
Frothingham, Washington (ed.). 1892a. History of Fulton County. Syracuse, NY: D. Mason.Google Scholar
Frothingham, Washington (ed.). 1892b. History of Montgomery County. Syracuse, NY: D. Mason.Google Scholar
Glens Falls Historical Association. 1978. Bridging the years: Glens Falls, New York, 1763–1978. Glens Falls, NY: Glens Falls Historical Association.Google Scholar
Gordon, Matthew J. 2000. Small-town value and big-city vowels: A study of the Northern Cities Shift in Michigan. Publications of the American Dialect Society 84. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
History of Delaware County. 1880. New York: W.W. Munsell. http://www.dcnyhistory.org/munsell.html ( 8 January, 2009 ).Google Scholar
Hough, Franklin B. 1853. A history of St. Lawrence and Franklin Counties, New York, from the earliest period to the present time. Albany, NY: Little & Co.Google Scholar
Hough, Franklin B. 1854. A history of Jefferson County in the state of New York. Albany, NY: Joel Munsell.Google Scholar
Hurd, Duane H. 1880. History of Clinton and Franklin Counties, New York. Philadelphia: J.W. Lewis.Google Scholar
Hyde, Louis F. 1936. History of Glens Falls. Glens Falls, NY: Glens Falls Post Company.Google Scholar
Johnson, Daniel E. 2007. Stability and change along a dialect boundary: The low vowels of southeastern New England. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania dissertation.Google Scholar
Kurath, Hans. 1939. Handbook of the linguistic geography of New England. Providence, RI: Brown University.Google Scholar
Kurath, Hans. 1949. A word geography of the eastern United States. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Kurath, Hans & McDavid, Raven I. Jr. 1961. The pronunciation of English in the Atlantic states. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2003. Pursuing the cascade model. In Britain, D. Cheshire & Cheshire, J. (eds), Social dialectology: In honour of Peter Trudgill, 9–22. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2007. Transmission and diffusion. Language 83(2): 344–387.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2010. Principles of linguistic change, volume 3: Cognitive and cultural factors. Malden, MA.: Wiley/Blackwell.Google Scholar
Labov, William, Ash, Sharon & Boberg, Charles. 2006. The atlas of North American English: Phonetics, phonology, and sound change. Berlin: Mouton/de Gruyter.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Corrine. 2010. The Northern Cities Shift in real time: Evidence from Chicago. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 15(2): 101–110.Google Scholar
Merriam, Nellie. 1907. The first settlement of Ogdensburg. In Swe-Kat-Si-Chapter (ed.), Reminiscences of Ogdensburg, 1749–1907: Daughters of the American Revolution, 1–17. New York: Silver, Burdett & Co.Google Scholar
Murray, David (ed.). 1898. Delaware County, New York: History of the century, 1797–1897. Delhi, NY: W. Clark. http://www.dcnyhistory.org/murray17971897.html ( 8 January, 2009 ).Google Scholar
Platt, Edmund. 1987 [1905]. The Eagle's history of Poughkeepsie: From the earliest settlements 1683 to 1905. Poughkeepsie, NY: Dutchess County Historical Society.Google Scholar
Roberts, Ellis H. 1911. Utica: Its history and progress. In Larned, J. N., A History of Buffalo, vol. II., 257–291. New York: The Progress of the Empire State Company.Google Scholar
Ryan, Mary P. 1983. Cradle of the middle class: The family in Oneida County, New York, 1790–1865. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, Charles K. 1935. Pronunciation in Upstate New York (III). American Speech 10(4): 292–297.Google Scholar
Thomas, Charles K. 1936. Pronunciation in Upstate New York (IV). American Speech 11(1): 68–77.Google Scholar
Thomas, Erik R. 2001. An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English. Publications of the American Dialect Society 85. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar