What is the difference between cot and caught?
There used to be a difference in the way Texans pronounced the words “cot” versus “caught.” But now the vowels in those words is starting to become indistinguishable. Hinrichs called it the “cot-caught merger.” “Many people still distinguish between ‘cot’ and ‘caught’, but most younger people don’t,” he said.
Are cot and caught homophones?
(phonology) A phonemic merger in some varieties of English (especially American and Canadian English) in which the vowels in words such as “hot” and “doll” and in words such as “law” and “talk” are pronounced identically, making the words “cot” and “caught” homophones.
What is the phonetic of caught?
/kAWt/ phonetic spelling.
What sound is cot?
| cot | [kɑt] | caught |
|---|---|---|
| pa’s | [pɑz] | pause, paws |
| Don | [dɑn] | Dawn |
Does General American have the cot caught merger?
Both of the above options highlight a fun feature of the General American accent called the “Cot-Caught Merger.” This basically means that in some parts of the country these two sounds will be pronounced differently, while in other parts, they sound exactly the same (the two sounds have merged together).
What is the sound of cot?
The sound is (short o) cot. Remember, for the short o sound, the jaw opens and the body of the tongue moves back and drops low into the bottom teeth. The transition into the aw sound from the short o sound is kind of complex.
What is a trap vowel?
English has two vowels that can convey different words like ‘bad’ and ‘bed’. Therefore, speakers tend to substitute a vowel from their native language that is relatively close to TRAP– short “e” or short “a.” However, “head” is not “had”. Compared to “e,” TRAP is a more open vowel.
What is a low back merger phonology?
The cot–caught merger (also known as the low back merger or the LOT–THOUGHT merger) is a phonemic merger occurring in many English accents, where the vowel sound in words like cot, nod, and stock (the LOT vowel), has merged with that of caught, gnawed, and stalk (the THOUGHT vowel).
What is mean by caught?
Caught is the past tense of catch and means that someone was trapped or something that was thrown was grabbed. When someone threw you a ball and you grabbed it, this is an example of a situation where you caught a ball. Simple past tense and past participle of catch.