In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by /r/ in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by /r/ that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vowel phonemes occur before /r/ than in other positions of a word.

Overview

In rhotic dialects, /r/ is pronounced in most cases. In General American English (GA), /r/ is pronounced as an approximant [ɹ] or [ɻ] in most positions, but after some vowels, it is pronounced as r-coloring. In Scottish English, /r/ is traditionally pronounced as a flap [ɾ] or trill [r], and there are no r-colored vowels.

In non-rhotic dialects like Received Pronunciation (RP), historic /r/ is elided at the end of a syllable, and if the preceding vowel is stressed, it undergoes compensatory lengthening or breaking (diphthongization). Thus, words that historically had /r/ often have long vowels or centering diphthongs ending in a schwa /ə/, or a diphthong followed by a schwa.

• earth: GA , RP
• here: GA , RP
• fire: GA , RP

In most English dialects, there are vowel shifts that affect only vowels before /r/ or vowels that were historically followed by /r/. Vowel shifts before historical /r/ fall into two categories: mergers and splits. Mergers are more common and so most English dialects have fewer vowel distinctions before historical /r/ than in other positions of a word.

In many North American dialects, there are ten or eleven stressed monophthongs; only five or six vowel (rarely seven) contrasts are possible before a preconsonantal and word-final /r/ (beer, bear, burr, bar, bore, bor, boor). Often, more contrasts exist if /r/ appears between vowels of different syllables. In some American dialects and in most native English dialects outside North America, for example, mirror and nearer do not rhyme, and some or all of marry, merry, and Mary are pronounced distinctly. (In North America, those distinctions are most likely to occur in New York City, Philadelphia, some of Eastern New England (including Boston), and in conservative Southern accents.) In many dialects, however, the number of contrasts in that position tends to be reduced, and the tendency seems to be towards further reduction. The difference in how the reductions have been manifested represents one of the greatest sources of cross-dialect variation.

Non-rhotic accents in many cases show mergers in the same positions as rhotic accents even though there is often no /r/ phoneme present. That results partly from mergers that occurred before the /r/ was lost and partly from later mergers of the centering diphthongs and long vowels that resulted from the loss of /r/.

The phenomenon that occurs in many dialects of the United States is one of tense–lax neutralization^[1] in which the normal English distinction between tense and lax vowels is eliminated.

In some cases, the quality of a vowel before /r/ is different from the quality of the vowel elsewhere. For example, in some dialects of American English, the quality of the vowel in more typically does not occur except before /r/, and it is somewhere in between the vowels of maw and mow. It is similar to the vowel of the latter word but without the glide.

It is important to note, however, that different mergers occur in different dialects. Generally, these correlate to accents with rhotic vowels, as opposed to non-rhoticity (as in most of British English) or fully pronounced /r/ (as in Scottish English).

Mergers before intervocalic R

Most North American English dialects merge the lax vowels with the tense vowels before /r/ and so "marry" and "merry" have the same vowel as "mare", "mirror" has the same vowel as "mere", "forest" has the same vowel as the stressed form of "for", and "hurry" has the same vowel as "stir" as well as that found in the second syllable of "letter". The mergers are typically resisted by non-rhotic North Americans and are largely absent in areas of the United States that are historically largely nonrhotic.

Hurry–furry merger

Distinction between hurry and furry

Hurry vs. furry ( vs. )

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Speaker with merger: worry

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Speaker without merger: worry

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The hurry–furry merger occurs when the vowel /ʌ/ before intervocalic /r/ is merged with /ɜ/. That is particularly a feature in many dialects of North American English but not New York City English, Mid-Atlantic American English, older Southern American English, some speakers of Eastern New England English,^[2] and speakers of Southeastern New England English. Speakers with the merger pronounce hurry to rhyme with furry and turret to rhyme with stir it.

To occur, the merger requires the nurse mergers to be in full effect, which is the case in nearly all English dialects worldwide, particularly outside the British Isles. However, in Scotland, hurry /ˈhʌre/ is a perfect rhyme of furry /ˈfʌre/, but also the nurse mergers have never developed there, meaning that strut, dress and kit can all still exist before both intervocalic and coda /r/; thus, fur, fern, and fir have distinct vowels: /fʌr, fɛrn, fɪr/.

Dialects in England, Wales, and most others outside North America maintain the distinction between both sounds and so hurry and furry do not rhyme.^[2] However, in dialects without the foot–strut split, hurry has an entirely different vowel: /ˈhʊri/ (in a number of those dialects, a square–nurse merger is in effect instead).

General American has a three-way merger between the first vowels in hurry and furry and the unstressed vowel in letters. In Received Pronunciation, all of them have different sounds (/ʌ/, /ɜː/ and /ə/, respectively), and some minimal pairs exist between unstressed /ɜː/ and /ə/, such as foreword /ˈfɔːwɜːd/ vs. forward /ˈfɔːwəd/. In General American, they collapse to , but in phonemic transcription, they can still be differentiated as /ˈfɔrwɜrd/ and /ˈfɔrwərd/ to facilitate comparisons with other accents.^{[citation needed]} General American also often lacks a proper opposition between /ʌ/ and /ə/, which makes minimal pairs such as unorthodoxy and an orthodoxy variably homophonous as /ənˈɔrθədɑksi/.^[3] See the strut–comma merger for more information.

In New Zealand English, there is a consistent contrast between hurry and furry, but the unstressed /ə/ is lengthened to /ɜː/ (phonetically [ɵː]) in many positions, particularly in formal or slow speech and especially when it is spelled ⟨er⟩. Thus, boarded and bordered might be distinguished as /ˈbɔːdəd/ and /ˈbɔːdɜːd/, which is homophonous in Australian English as /ˈbɔːdəd/ and distinguished in Received Pronunciation as /ˈbɔːdɪd/ and /ˈbɔːdəd/, based on the length and the rounding of /ɜː/. The shift was caused by a complete phonemic merger of /ɪ/ and /ə/, a weak vowel merger that was generalized to all environments.^[4]

Mary–marry–merry merger

Mary–marry–merry

Example of an American speaker without the Mary–marry–merry merger

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One notable merger of vowels before /r/ is the Mary–marry–merry merger,^[5] a merging of the vowels /æ/ (as in the name Carrie or the word marry) and /ɛ/ (as in Kerry or merry) with the historical /eɪ/ (as in Cary or Mary) whenever they are realized before intervocalic /r/. No contrast exists before a final or preconsonantal /r/, where /æ/ merged with /ɑ/ and /ɛ/ with /ɜ/ (see nurse mergers) centuries ago.^[6] The merger is fairly widespread and is complete or nearly complete in most varieties of North American English,^{[sample 1]} but it is rare in other varieties of English. The following variants are common in North America:

• The full Mary–marry–merry merger (also known, in this context, as the three-way merger) is found throughout much of the United States (particularly the Western and Central United States) and in all of Canada except Montreal. This is found in about 57% of American English speakers, according to a 2003 dialect survey.^[5] The merger is highlighted in the song Merry Go 'Round, whose central wordplay revolves around "Mary", "marry", and "merry" having the exact same pronunciation in the singer's accent.
• No merger, also known as a three-way contrast, exists in North America primarily in the Northeastern United States and is most clearly documented in the accents of Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York City, Rhode Island, and Boston. In the Philadelphia accent, the three-way contrast is preserved, but merry tends to be merged with Murray (see merry–Murray merger below). The three-way contrast is found in about 17% of American English speakers overall.^{[5][7][sample 2]}
• The Mary–marry merger is found alone with 16% of American English speakers overall, with the highest concentration in New England, especially New Hampshire.^[5]
• The Mary–merry merger is found alone among 9% of American English speakers overall, concentrated in the American South, especially Louisiana where it is the most common variant,^[8] and the Southern part of the Mid-Atlantic region.^[5][9] It is also found among Anglophones in Montreal.
• The merry–marry merger is found alone rarely, with about 1% of American English speakers.

In accents without the merger, Mary has the a sound of mare, marry has the "short a" sound of mat, and merry has the "short e" sound of met. In modern Received Pronunciation, they are pronounced as , , and ; in Australian English, as , , and ; in New York City English, as , ˈmæɹi, and ˈmɛɹi; and in Philadelphia English, the same as New York City except merry is ˈmɛɹi⁓ˈmʌɹi. There is plenty of variance in the distribution of the merger, with expatriate communities of those speakers being formed all over the country.

The Mary–merry merger is possible in New Zealand, and the quality of the merged vowel is then [e̝] (similar to kit in General American). However, in New Zealand, the vowel in Mary often merges with the near vowel /iə/ instead (see near–square merger), which before intervocalic /r/ may then merge with /iː/ and so Mary (phonemically /ˈmeəriː/) can be ˈmiəɹiː or ˈmiːɹiː instead. In all of those cases, there is a clear distinction between Mary and merry (regardless of how both are pronounced) and marry /ˈmɛriː/ (with the trap vowel) on the other.^[10]

Merry–Murray mergeredit

The merry–Murray merger is a merger of /ɛ/ and /ʌ/ before /r/, with the resulting vowel being ʌ. It is common in the Philadelphia accent,^[11] which does not usually have the marry–merry merger; its "short a" /æ/, as in marry and its SQUARE vowel /e/ remain distinct unmerged classes before /r/.^[12] Therefore, merry and Murray are both pronounced as ˈmʌri, but marry ˈmæri and Mary ˈmeri are distinct from this merged pair (and each other).

Mirror–nearer and /ʊr/–/uːr/ mergersedit

The mergers of /ɪr/ and /iːr/ (as in mirror and nearer, or Sirius and serious, respectively) and /ʊr/–/uːr/ occur in North American English as a part of pre-/r/ laxing, together with the Mary–merry and horse–hoarse mergers. The phonetic outcome of the first merger is either a lax vowel [ɪ], or a somewhat raised vowel that approaches the monophthongal allophone of fleece: i̞, often diphthongal as ɪə ~ iə. In the case of the /ʊr/–/uːr/ merger, it tends to approach the monophthongal variant of goose: ʊ̝.^[13]

The mirror–nearer merger is absent from traditional, local, or non-standard accents of the Southern and Eastern United States, where nearer is pronounced with a tense monophthong i or a centering diphthong iə ~ ɪə (phonemicized as /i/ or /ɪə/, depending on whether the accent is rhotic or not), whereas mirror has a lax monophthong ɪ.^[14]

In the case of the first merger, only a handful of minimal pairs (e.g., cirrus–serous and Sirius–serious) illustrate the contrast, in addition to morphologically distinct pairs (e.g., spirit–spear it), all of which are rendered homophonous by the merger. Indeed, the number of the words containing /ɪr/ is itself low. No minimal pairs exist for the /ʊr/–/uːr/ merger, due to the extreme scarcity of the /ʊr/ sequence in dialects of English with the foot–strut split. Furthermore, the hurry–furry merger that occurs in most varieties of North American English results in a merger of /ʌr/ with /ɜr/, removing almost any trace of the historical foot vowel in this position. Instead, it is a simple replacement of one phoneme with another, so that the word tour /tʊr/ is perceived to contain the foot vowel, rather than the goose vowel. However, this change may not hold where morpheme boundaries apply; allowing a qualitative distinction to be maintained between the stressed vowels in tourist /ˈtʊrəst/ (a fairly close back monophthong of variable height) on the one hand, and two-wrist /ˈturɪst/ (a fully close monophthong in free variation with a narrow closing diphthong) on the other (cf. traditional RP /ˈtʊərɪst, ˈtuːrɪst/). The same applies to the mirror–nearer merger, which laxes the vowel in clearing /ˈklɪrɪŋ/ but not in key ring /ˈkirɪŋ/, cf. RP /ˈklɪərɪŋ, ˈkiːrɪŋ/. Certain words are pronounced as if they contained a morpheme boundary before /r/, notably hero /ˈhiroʊ/ and zero /ˈziroʊ/.^[15]

Some words originally containing the /uːr/ sequence are merged with either force (see cure–force merger) or, more rarely, nurse (see cure–nurse merger) instead of foot + /r/.^[16]

The mirror–nearer and /ʊr/–/uːr/ mergers are not to be confused with the fleece–near and goose–cure mergers that occur in some non-rhotic dialects before a sounded /r/ and which do not involve the lax vowels /ɪ/ and /ʊ/.^{[clarification needed][citation needed]}

Merger of /ɒr/ and /ɔr/ before vowelsedit

Words with a stressed /ɒ/ before intervocalic /r/ in Received Pronunciation are treated differently in different varieties of North American English. As shown in the table below, in Canadian English, all of them are pronounced with -ɔr-, as in cord. In the accents of Philadelphia, southern New Jersey, and the Carolinas (and traditionally throughout the whole South), those words are pronounced by some with -ɑr-, as in card and so merge with historic prevocalic /ɑr/ in words like starry. In New York City, Long Island, and the nearby parts of New Jersey, those words are pronounced with ɒr like in Received Pronunciation. However, the sound is met with change to /ɑr/ and so still merges with the historic prevocalic /ɑr/ in starry.^[17]

On the other hand, the traditional Eastern New England accents (especially around Boston), the words are pronounced with -ɒr-, but the cot–caught merger still applies elsewhere. In that regard, it is the same as Canadian /ɒ/, rather than Received Pronunciation /ɒ/. Most of the rest of the United States (marked "General American" in the table), however, has a distinctive mixed system. Most words are pronounced as in Canada, the five words in the left-hand column are typically pronounced with -ɑr-, all common words ending in an unstressed full vowel.^[18]

In accents with the horse–hoarse merger, /ɔr/ also includes the historic /oʊr/ in words such as glory and force. When an accent also features the cot–caught merger, /ɔr/ is typically analyzed as /oʊr/ to avoid postulating a separate /ɔ/ phoneme that occurs only before /r/. Therefore, both cord and glory are considered to contain the /oʊ/ phoneme in California, Canada, and elsewhere. Therefore, in accents with the horse–hoarse merger, /kɔrd/ and /koʊrd/ are different analyses of the same word cord, and there may be little to no difference in the realization of the vowel.

In the varieties of Scottish English with the cot–caught merger, the vowel is pronounced towards the [ɔ] of caught and north. It remains distinct from the [o] of force and goat because of the lack of the horse–hoarse merger.

Even in the American East Coast without the split (Boston, New York City, Rhode Island, Philadelphia and some of the coastal South), some of the words in the original short-o class often show influence from other American dialects and end up with -ɔr- anyway. For instance, some speakers from the Northeast pronounce Florida, orange, and horrible with -ɑr- but foreign and origin with -ɔr-. The list of words affected differs from dialect to dialect and occasionally from speaker to speaker, which is an example of sound change by lexical diffusion.

Mergers before historic postvocalic Redit

/aʊr/–/aʊər/ mergeredit

The Middle English merger of the vowels with the spellings ⟨our⟩ and ⟨ower⟩ affects all modern varieties of English and causes words like sour and hour, which originally had one syllable, to have two syllables and so to rhyme with power. In accents that lack the merger, sour has one syllable, and power has two syllables. Similar mergers also occur in which hire gains a syllable and so makes it pronounced like higher, and coir gains a syllable and so makes it pronounced like coyer.^[19]

Card–cord mergeredit

The card–cord merger, or start–north merger, is a merger of Early Modern English ɑr with ɒr, which results in the homophony of pairs like card/cord, barn/born and far/for. It is roughly similar to the father–bother merger but before r. The merger is found in some Caribbean English accents, in some West Country accents in England, and in some accents of Southern American English.^[20][21] Areas of the United States in which the merger is most common include Central Texas, Utah, and St. Louis, but it is not dominant anywhere and is rapidly disappearing.^[22] Rhotic dialects with the card–cord merger are some of the only ones without the horse–hoarse merger; this correlation is well-documented in the United States.^[22]