Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1970, Page 150

148
netic and phonemic structure, consider the following examples
from my native English:
ca(r)t, father, spa
cot, bother
caught, law
London Boston New York Pittsburgh
öö
0
0
%
0
4
Within this part of the vowel system, London (standard) En-
glish shows three phonemes: free low central /á/ in ca(f)t,
father, spa; checked low back /4/ in cot, bother; free back /g/
in caught, law. Boston shows two phonemes: free low front /á/
in ca(r)t,father, spa; free low back fj in cot, bother, caught, law.
New York also shows two phonemes: free low back /4/ in
ca(r)t, father, spa, cot, bother; free back /9/ in caught, law. Pitts-
burgs shows only one phoneme: free low back /4/ in all these
examples.
The above data are, I believe, approximately correct; yet
it is difficult to find them in the materials collected for the
American atlas. The reason is that the atlas field workers made
their recordings on a purely phonetic basis, without also in-
quiring into phonemic structure; and it is well known that
impressionistic phonetic recordings are often highly inaccurate.
(This has been demonstrated by, among others, the Danish
scholar K. Ringgaard.) I believe that, in the future, far better
dialect data can be obtained if we revise the tasks both of the
field workers and of their informants. Field workers must of
course continue to make phonetic recordings that are as ac-
curate as possible, though with full realization that complete
accuracy is impossible. They must therefore supplement their
phonetic recordings by asking their informants such simple
questions as: Do these two words rhyme ? (That is, beginning
with the last stressed vowel, are they phonemically identical?)
Questions of this sort will provide both phonetic and pho-