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Los Angeles Chicano English

This chapter discusses the phonology and phonetics of the ethnic dialect of the Chicano (Mexican-American) community in Los Angeles, California. The inventory and structure of the (surface) phonological system are discussed. Phonetic patterns are displayed in charts of acoustic measurements which reflect the processes of phonetic grammar. These processes or relationships are discussed below; they specify the mean location (one might say, target) of vowel classes in vowel space, and characterize the significant shifts from these locations that are correlated with phrasal stress and with preceding and following consonants. Some evidence for the low-back merger, between Reference American // and /:/ (as in LOT and THOUGHT) is also examined



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Thomas Veatch 2005-01-25