American Raising

“At the heart of the current volume of PADS are the English diphthongs /ai/ and /au/,” write the editors in their introduction. “Interest in these phones has in large part been due to the process traditionally known as Canadian Raising, in which the diphthongs surface with a raised nucleus (that is, as [AI] and [AU]) before voiceless consonants.”
 
American Raising shows a related but distinct pattern in which /ai/-raising occurs without concomitant /au/-raising. It recently emerged among a generation born around 1990 in US locales either that did not have raising previously or where the characteristics of the younger generation of raisers differ from those of the older generation. Contributors to this monograph investigate American Raising from the phonological and morphological environments that favor /ai/ raising, document new emergent patterns of raising, address social characteristics of raising and what it might index, and make methodological contributions to the study of raising.

Contributors: Aaron Albin, Kelly Berkson, Stuart Davis, Robin Dodsworth, Mary Kohn, Jeff Mielke, Elliott Moreton, Wil A. Rankinen, Natalie Schilling, Christopher Strelluf, Alyssa Strickler, Julia Thomas Swan, Erik R. Thomas