The fronting of the back upgliding vowels in Charleston, South Carolina

Abstract

Abstract In a radical reorganization of its sound system, Charleston has lost most of the distinctive features of the traditional dialect, including monophthongal and ingliding /ey/ ( face ) and /ow/ ( goat ). The traditionally back nucleus of /ow/ is now further to the front in Charleston than it is in most other dialects of American English. The fronting is led by the highest-status social group and appears not to conform to the generalization of the curvilinear principle, whereby an intermediately located social group leads linguistic change from below. It is argued that the fronting is not internally motivated, but rather it is being introduced into the dialect as a systematic borrowing. It is a change from above and as such does not bear on the curvilinear principle.