A lexical set is a group of
word
A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...
s that share a particular
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
or
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
sound.
A
phoneme
A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
is a basic unit of sound in a language that can distinguish one word from another. Most commonly, following the work of phonetician
John C. Wells
John Christopher Wells (born 11 March 1939) is a British phonetician and Esperantist. Wells is a professor emeritus at University College London, where until his retirement in 2006 he held the departmental chair in phonetics. He is known for ...
, a lexical set is a class of words in a language that share a certain
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
phoneme
A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
. As Wells himself says, lexical sets "enable one to refer concisely to large groups of words which tend to share the same vowel, and to the vowel which they share". For instance, the pronunciation of the vowel in ''cup'', ''luck'', ''sun'', ''blood'', ''glove'', and ''tough'' may vary in different English dialects but is usually consistent within each dialect and so the category of words forms a lexical set,
[Mesthrie, Rajend (2000). "Regional Dialectology". ''Introducing Sociolinguistics''. Edinburgh University Press, p. 50.] which Wells, for ease, calls the set. Meanwhile, words like ''bid'', ''cliff'', ''limb'', ''miss'', etc. form a separate lexical set: Wells's set. Originally, Wells developed 24 such labels—''keywords''—for the vowel lexical sets of English, which have been sometimes modified and expanded by himself or other scholars for various reasons. Lexical sets have also been used to describe the vowels of other languages, such as
French,
Irish and
Scots.
There are several reasons why lexical sets are useful. Scholars of phonetics often use abstract symbols (most universally today, those of the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...
) to transcribe phonemes, but they may follow different transcribing conventions or rely on implicit assumptions in their exact choice of symbols. One convenience of lexical sets is their tendency to avoid these conventions or assumptions. Instead, Wells explains, they "make use of keywords intended to be unmistakable no matter what accent one says them in". That makes them useful for examining phonemes within an accent, comparing and contrasting different accents, and capturing how phonemes may be differently distributed based on accent. A further benefit is that people with no background in phonetics can identify a phoneme not by learned symbols or technical jargon but by its simple keyword (like or in the above examples).
[
]
Standard lexical sets for English
The standard lexical sets for English introduced by John C. Wells in his 1982 ''Accents of English'' are in wide usage. Wells defined each lexical set on the basis of the pronunciation of words in two reference accents, which he calls RP and GenAm.
* "RP" refers to Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent of British English regarded as the Standard language, standard one, carrying the highest Prestige (sociolinguistics), social prestige, since as late as the beginning of the 2 ...
, the traditionally prestigious accent in England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
.
* "GenAm" refers to an accent of the General American
General American English, known in linguistics simply as General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm), is the umbrella accent of American English used by a majority of Americans, encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent. ...
type, which is associated with a geographically "neutral" or widespread sound system throughout the US.
Wells classifies English words into 24 lexical sets on the basis of the pronunciation of the vowel of their stressed syllable in the two reference accents. Typed in small caps
In typography, small caps (short for small capitals) are grapheme, characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. Small caps are used i ...
, each lexical set is named after a representative keyword. Wells also describes three sets of words based on word-final unstressed vowels, which, though not included in the standard 24 lexical sets (the final three sets listed in the chart below) "have indexical and diagnostic value in distinguishing accents".
For example, the word ''rod'' is pronounced in RP and in GenAm. It therefore belongs in the lexical set. ''Weary'' is pronounced in RP and in GenAm and thus belongs in the lexical set.
Some English words do not belong to any lexical set. For example, the ''a'' in the stressed syllable of ''tomato'' is pronounced in RP, and in GenAm, a combination that is very unusual and is not covered by any of the 27 lexical sets above. Some words pronounced with before a velar consonant
Velar consonants are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (also known as the "velum").
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relativel ...
in RP, such as ''mock'' and ''fog'', belong to no particular lexical set because the GenAm pronunciation varies between and .
The GenAm , , , and range between monophthongal and diphthongal , and Wells chose to phonemicize three of them as monophthongs for the sake of simplicity and as to avoid confusion with RP , .
The happ set was identified phonemically as the same as for both RP and GenAm, reflecting the then-traditional analysis, although realizations similar to ( ''happy'' tensing) were already taking hold in both varieties. The notation for happ has since emerged and been taken up by major pronouncing dictionaries, including Wells's, to take note of this shift. Wells's model of General American is also conservative in that it lacks the ''cot''–''caught'' (–) and ''horse''–''hoarse'' (–) mergers.
Choice of the keywords
Wells explains his choice of keywords ("kit", "fleece", etc.) as follows:
The keywords have been chosen in such a way that clarity is maximized: whatever accent of English they are spoken in, they can hardly be mistaken for other words. Although ''fleece'' is not the commonest of words, it cannot be mistaken for a word with some other vowel; whereas ''beat'', say, if we had chosen it instead, would have been subject to the drawback that one man's pronunciation of ''beat'' may sound like another's pronunciation of ''bait'' or ''bit''.
Wherever possible, the keywords end in a voiceless alveolar or dental consonant.
Usage
The standard lexical sets of Wells are widely used to discuss the phonological
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often prefer ...
and phonetic
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
systems of different accents of English in a clear and concise manner. Although based solely on RP and GenAm, the standard lexical sets have proven useful in describing many other accents of English. This is true because, in many dialects, the words in all or most of the sets are pronounced with similar or identical stressed vowels. Wells himself uses the Lexical Sets most prominently to give "tables of lexical incidence" for all the various accents he discusses in his work. For example, here is the table of lexical incidence he gives for Newfoundland English
Newfoundland English refers to several accents and dialects of Atlantic Canadian English found in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Most of these differ significantly from the English commonly spoken elsewhere in Canada and North Amer ...
:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*:
*happ:
*lett:
*comm:
The table indicates that, for example, Newfoundland English uses the phoneme for words in the lexical set, and that the , and sets are all pronounced with the same vowel . Note that some lexical sets, such as , are given with more than one pronunciation, which indicates that not all words in the lexical set are pronounced similarly (in this case, Newfoundland English has not fully undergone the pane–pain merger). is a back vowel ; Wells uses the symbol so that the reader does not confuse it with the vowel (which, in the case of many other accents, he writes with or ).
Wells also uses the standard lexical sets to refer to "the vowel sound used for the standard lexical set in question in the accent under discussion": Thus, for example, in describing the Newfoundland accent, Wells writes that " and are reportedly often merged as ", meaning that the stressed syllables of words in the lexical set and words in the lexical set are reportedly often pronounced identically with the vowel .
Lexical sets may also be used to describe splits and mergers. For example, RP, along with most other non-rhotic accents, pronounces words such as "father" and "farther" identically. This can be described more economically as the merger of the and lexical sets. Most North American accents make "father" rhyme with "bother". This can be described as the merger of the and lexical sets.
Origin
In a 2010 blog post, Wells wrote:
He also wrote that he claimed no copyright in the standard lexical sets, and that everyone was "free to make whatever use of them they wish".[
]
Extensions
Some varieties of English make distinctions in stressed vowels that are not captured by the 24 lexical sets. For example, some Irish and Scottish accents that have not undergone the fern–fir–fur merger split the lexical set into multiple subsets. For such accents, the 24 Wells lexical sets may be inadequate. Because of this, a work devoted to Irish English may split the Wells set into two subsets, a new, smaller set and a set.
Some writers on English accents have introduced a set to refer to a set of words that have the vowel in standard accents but may have a different vowel in Sheffield or in south-east London. Wells has stated that he didn't include a set because this should be interpreted as an allophone of that is sensitive to the morpheme boundary, which he illustrates by comparing the London pronunciations of ''goalie'' and ''slowly''.
, which documents the phonologies of varieties of English around the world like , employs Wells's standard lexical sets as well as the following supplementary lexical sets, as needed to illustrate finer details of the variety under discussion:
*, discussed above
*hors, offics, paintd and villge, all referring to the unstressed allophone of that is subject to the weak vowel merger
The close and mid-height front vowels of English (vowels of ''i'' and ''e'' type) have undergone a variety of changes over time and often vary by dialect.
Developments involving long vowels Until Great Vowel Shift
Middle English had a lon ...
*, and , for the allophones of ( in non-rhotic dialects), and before intervocalic , commonly subject to Mary–marry–merry merger in North American English
* and , for the allophones of and before intervocalic , commonly subject to mirror–nearer merger
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions, so fewer vowel ...
in North American English
*treac and unc, both referring to the vocalized
*Other supplementary lexical sets include:
:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , met, , , , , , , , carr, cord, crious, , , bout, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
*There is also the set, which is the same as Wells's .
Adaptation for Anglo-Welsh dialects
In his work for the Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects, David Parry adapted Wells's lexical sets for Anglo-Welsh dialects.
See also
* Diaphoneme
A diaphoneme is an abstract phonology, phonological unit that identifies a correspondence between related sounds of two or more variety (linguistics), varieties of a language or language cluster. For example, some English varieties contrast the ...
* Homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...
* Minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate t ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
* {{Accents of English
External links
* Nicole Taylor (with the collaboration of Norma Mendoza-Dento
, The University of Arizona, Anthropology 383
Standard Lexical Sets
2002 (in Archive.is)
* University of Pennsylvania
Phonology
English phonology
*
Linguistics terminology