Prevelar Raising and Phonetic Conditioning: Role of Labial and Anterior Tongue Gestures

This article analyzes prevelar raising of /æ/, a restructuring present in the Upper Midwestern United States, from an articulatory perspective. Labov, Ash, and Boberg raise the question as to where this phenomenon lies within the range of uniform gestures. The present article describes lingual, mandibular, and labial movements in producing raised and unraised /æ/ in order to answer the question as to why /æg/ is elevated in the vowel space above /æk/ even when speakers are not participating in the prevelar raising. Results of a study of speakers who raise /æ/ before /g/ compared to a cohort of nonraisers reveal that in addition to a more anterior gesture for /æ/ before /g/ than before /k/, there is statistically significant lip repositioning associated with the raising gesture. The results highlight limitations of sound change descriptions when only acoustic data is available.