Western American English
E9144
Western American English is the group of English dialects spoken in the western United States, characterized by features such as the cot–caught merger and relatively uniform pronunciation across a large geographic area.
Aliases (2)
Statements (52)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
American English dialect
→
regional dialect group → variety of English → |
| contrastedWith |
Inland North American English
→
New England English → Southern American English → |
| developedFrom |
earlier American English dialects brought by settlers
→
|
| emerged |
20th century
→
|
| geographicRegion |
Alaska
→
Hawaii → Mountain states → Pacific states → parts of the Pacific Northwest → parts of the Southwest → |
| hasLexicalFeature |
use of "hella" as an intensifier in some areas
→
use of "snow machine" for snowmobile in some northern areas → use of "soda" as common term for carbonated soft drink in many areas → use of "you guys" as second-person plural pronoun → |
| hasPhonologicalFeature |
/eɪ/ sometimes slightly monophthongized
→
/oʊ/ often fronted and monophthongized for many speakers → /r/ pronounced in all positions → /u/ fronting to [ʉ] or [y]-like quality in many environments → /æ/ often somewhat raised before nasal consonants → cot–caught merger → generally lacks the strong Southern drawl → generally lacks traditional New England non-rhoticity → generally rhotic pronunciation → lack of strong regional vowel distinctions compared to other U.S. regions → relatively uniform pronunciation across large geographic area → t-flapping between vowels in many words → weak distinction between "Mary" "merry" and "marry" for many speakers → weak distinction between "pin" and "pen" only in some subregions → yod-dropping in words like "tune" and "dune" for many speakers → |
| hasStatus |
de facto standard regional speech in much of the western U.S.
→
|
| hasSubvariety |
Arizona English
→
California English → Nevada English → Pacific Northwest English → Utah English → |
| hasSyntacticFeature |
tendency to avoid double modals
→
use of "be like" as quotative construction → use of "like" as discourse marker → |
| languageBranch |
Germanic languages
→
|
| languageFamily |
Indo-European languages
→
|
| languageSubbranch |
West Germanic languages
→
|
| partOf |
American English
→
English language → |
| spokenIn |
western United States
→
|
| studiedInField |
dialectology
→
sociolinguistics → |
| usedBy |
native speakers in western United States
→
|
| writingSystem |
Latin alphabet
→
|
Referenced by (7)
| Subject (surface form when different) | Predicate |
|---|---|
|
North American English
→
North American English ("Pacific Northwest English") → |
includesDialect |
|
Nevada English
("Western U.S. English dialect region")
→
|
belongsTo |
|
Chinook Jargon
("Pacific Northwest English")
→
|
hasLoanwordsIn |
|
Western American English
("Pacific Northwest English")
→
|
hasSubvariety |
|
American English
→
|
hasVariant |
|
Nevada English
→
|
partOf |