Subject: british < a >

having followed the discussion of [ ae ] vs . [ a : ] , etc . in s british english , i 'd like to add a few historical points that may help to straighten out some uncertainties . 1 . me / a / remained open [ a ] in s england until about the middle of the 17th century ( the first good witness to [ ae ] is john wallis ' grammar of 1653 ) . at this stage there was no lengthening or change of quality . 2 . the new [ ae ] began to lengthen before / r / in the later 17th century ( categorically ) , and then before voiceless fricatives except [ s ] , and variably before / nc / clusters . the first traces of the lengthening ( well described in christopher cooper 's grammatica linguae anglicanae , 1685 ) show lengthening as variable , more frequent if a consonant follows the consonant causing lengthening : thus short vowel in car , long in cart , short in pass , long in passed , etc . 3 . lengthening increases during the 17th - early 18th century , and by around the 1740s ( e . g . in mather flint 's prononciation de la language angloise , 1740 ) there is variable lowering of the lengthened [ ae : ] to [ a : ] , partly lexically determined . this continues throughout the 18th c . 4 . the situation - - which words have lengthened and / or lowered vowels - - continues to be fluid well into the 19th c . a j ellis in 1874 reports both the modern pattern and a whole set of variants , including short vowels even before / r / . 5 . the retraction to a low central or back ( ish ) vowel is late , probably not before the later 1870s . 6 . the process never diffused through the whole lexicon except before / r / ( which of course was later lost ) ; there are still loads of minimal or near-minimal pairs in rp and other southern varieties , e . g . ass / arse , cant / can't , mass / mask , etc . a lot of forms vacillate , e . g . short or long in masturbate , plastic , etc . ( see john wells ' accents of english , 1982 for a good account ) . roger lass roger lass department of linguistics university of cape town rondebosch 7700 / south africa tel + ( 021 ) 650 3138 fax + ( 021 ) 650 3726
