StAmE phonological patterns

Kurath and McDavid (1961) distinguished four different phonological patterns for cultivated speakers of American English in the Atlantic States: I: Upstate New York, Eastern Pennsylvania, and the South Midland; II: Metropolitan New York, the Upper South, and the Lower South; III: Eastern New England; and IV: Western Pennsylvania. All of these sets held the high and central front vowels and the high back vowels in common , with some variation in the low vowels. The same patterns exist today, with the American West generally following the pattern Kurath and McDavid described for Western Pennsylvania. Discussion of three ongoing sound changes by Labov (1981, 1991, 1994), called the Northern Cities Shift, the Southern Shift, and Western Merger, has focused on working and lower-middle class speakers, and so it is difficult to estimate the extent to which these changes have penetrated StAmE.