Midland American Accents

This is a term that applies to the American

accents that lie between North and South, in
states like Missouri, Southern Indiana, Southern
Illisnois,
Southern
Pennsylvania,
Kansas,
Oklahoma, and pockets of a few other states.
Accents here vary a good deal, but can best be
described as being a combination of Northern and
Southern features.

What is the
Midland
The three main dialects
in the middle western
Dialect?

area of the United States are the Northern, the

Midland, and the Southern dialects. Labov
further divided [the Midland] into two sections:
the Midland North and the Midland South.
These two dialects are very different and are not
to be considered the same.

Phonology
Caught/Cot Merger
There are many distinctions in the phonology of the
Midland American English dialect. The word
phonology refers to the sound and pronunciation of
words. One of these distinctions is the caught/cot
merger. The caught/cot merger causes that words
caught and cot to become homophones, which
means that they are pronounced in the exact same
way.

It causes other words like dawn and don and

merry, Mary, and Marry to sound identical. It
also causes the words bet, but, bought, got,
and bat to sound alike as well. This type of
speech, however, does not effect vowels that
follow the letter r, causing words like barn and
corn to remain unchanged .
*and also uses the need/want + past participle
construction
*says words like pop and dinner

The North Midland and South Midland are both

characterized by having a distinctly fronter
realization of the /o/ phoneme (as in boat) than
many other American accents, particularly those
of the North; the phoneme is frequently realized
with a central nucleus, approximating [].
Likewise, /a/ has a fronter nucleus than /a/,
approaching []. Another feature
distinguishing the Midland from the North is
that the word on contains the phoneme // (as in
caught) rather than // (as in cot).

Velar Nasal
There are also certain distinctions with the velar
nasal in the Midland Dialect. The velar nasal is the
ng sound at the end of words like sing. Typically
the consonant at the end of the word sing is // ,
giving it the ng sound. However, in some American
English dialects, specifically Midland American
English, that consonant is replaced with the
consonant /n/, causing words like saying to sound
like sayin'.

Schwa Deletion
Schwa deletion is another variation in the
phonology of many Midland cities. In American
English, a schwa is an unstressed neutral vowel
sound, such as the i in the word pencil and the e in
the word taken (Hooper 191). Schwa deletion is
simply not acknowledging those unstressed vowels
at all, causing the word suppose to sound like
suppose.

GRAMMAR
To Be
There are also several grammatical variations that
we see in Midland English that differ from Standard
English. One variation that occurs is with the verb to
be. As we know, words like am, is, are, was, and were
are all words for the verb to be. Sometimes in the
American Midland dialect, these verbs are incorrectly
used in the place of one another. An example of this is
shown in the sentence, "there was a lot of us girls."
Instead of the word was, the correct word to use in this
sentence would have been were.

Need/Want + Past Participle

Another place where to be is varied is the
use of need(s)/want(s) + past participle. An
example would be: "I want out," most other
dialects would say: "I want to be outside.
Speech Repair/Utterances
A grammatical variation being found within
the younger generations of the Midland Dialect
are known as utterances. These are words like
um and like, which are used to set up a
person's speech

Lexical Terms
Lexical terms are certain vocabulary
terms that people use. They vary
between regions and sometimes
there are several terms for the same
thing in one region. Below is a list of
terms that are commonly used by
Midland American English speakers,
along with an explanation for each
one.

Tennis Shoes- What you wear on

your feet while running or playing
a sport. Other regions commonly
refer to these as sneakers or gym
shoes.
Mango- A green bell pepper and
type of fruit. Other regions only
use this term to refer to a fruit
and not a pepper.
Pop- A carbonated beverage or
soft drink. Other regions
commonly refer to this as soda.
Dinner- A mid-day meal or the
largest meal of the day.

FINALLY, LET'S WATCH A

VIDEO ABOUT MIDLAND
PHONOLOGY
AND
THANKS FOR YOUR
ATTENTION