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TheTRAP–BATH split is avowel split that occurs mainly inSouthern England English (includingReceived Pronunciation),Australian English,New Zealand English,Indian English,South African English and to a lesser extent in someWelsh English as well as olderNortheastern New England English by which theEarly Modern English phoneme/æ/ waslengthened in certain environments and ultimately merged with the long/ɑː/ ofPALM.[1] In that context, the lengthened vowel in words such asbath,laugh,grass andchance in accents affected by the split is referred to as abroad A (also called in Britainlong A). Phonetically, the vowel is[ɑː]ⓘ inReceived Pronunciation (RP),Cockney andEstuary English; in some other accents, includingAustralian andNew Zealand accents, it is a more fronted vowel ([ɐː]ⓘ or[aː]ⓘ) and tends to be a rounded and shortened[ɒ~ɔ] in BroadSouth African English. Atrap–bath split also occurs in the accents of the Middle Atlantic United States (New York City,Baltimore, andPhiladelphia accents), but it results in very different vowel qualities to the aforementioned British-type split. To avoid confusion, the Middle Atlantic American split is usually referred to inAmerican linguistics as a 'short-a split'.
In accents unaffected by the split, words likebath andlaugh usually have the same vowel as words likecat,trap andman: theshort A orflat A. Similar changes took place in words with⟨o⟩ in thelot–cloth split.
The sound change originally occurred inSouthern England and ultimately changed the sound of/æ/ⓘ to/ɑː/ⓘ in some words in which the former sound appeared before/f,s,θ,ns,nt,ntʃ,mpəl/. That led to RP/pɑːθ/ forpath,/tʃɑːnt/ forchant etc. The sound change did not occur before other consonants and so accents affected by the split preserve/æ/ in words likecat. (See thesection below for more details on the words affected.) The lengthening of thebath vowel began in the 17th century but was "stigmatised as aCockneyism until well into the 19th century".[2]: 122 However, since the late 19th century, it has been embraced as a feature of upper-classReceived Pronunciation.
The presence or absence of this split is one of the most noticeable differences between different accents ofEngland. Anisogloss runs across theMidlands from theWash to theWelsh border, passing to the south of the cities ofBirmingham andLeicester. North of the isogloss, the vowel in most of the affected words is usually the same short-a as incat; south of the isogloss, the vowel in the affected words is generally long.[3]
There is some variation close to the isogloss; for example in the dialect of Birmingham (the so-called 'Brummie') most of the affected words have a short-a, butaunt andlaugh usually have long vowels. Additionally, some words which have/æ/ in most forms ofAmerican English, includinghalf,calf,rather,can't andshan't, are usually found with long vowels in the Midlands and Northern England. The split is also variable inWelsh English, often correlated with social status. In some varieties, such asCardiff English, words likeask,bath,laugh,master andrather are usually pronounced with/ɑː/ while words likeanswer,castle,dance andnasty are normally pronounced with/æ/. On the other hand, the split may be completely absent in other varieties likeAbercraf English.[4]
In northern English dialects, the short A is phonetically[a~a̠], while the broad A varies from[ɑː] to[aː]; for some speakers, the two vowels may be identical in quality, differing only in length ([a] vs[aː]).[5]John Wells has claimed that Northerners who have high social status may have atrap–bath split[6] and has posted on his blog that he grew up with the split inUpholland,Lancashire.[7] AF Gupta's study of students at the University of Leeds found that (on splitting the country in two halves) 93% of northerners used[a] in the wordbath and 96% of southerners used[ɑː].[8] However, there are areas of the Midlands where the two variants co-exist and, once these are excluded, there were very few individuals in the north who had atrap–bath split (or in the south who did not have the split). Gupta writes, 'There is no justification for the claims by Wells and Mugglestone that this is a sociolinguistic variable in the north, though it is a sociolinguistic variable on the areas on the border [the isogloss between north and south]'.[9]
In someWest Country accents ofEnglish English in which the vowel intrap is realised as[a] rather than[æ], the vowel in thebath words was lengthened to[aː] and did not merge with the/ɑː/ offather. In those accents,trap,bath, andfather all have distinct vowels/a/,/aː/, and/ɑː/.[10]
In Cornwall, Bristol and its nearby towns, and many forms ofScottish English, there is no distinction corresponding to the RP distinction between/æ/ and/ɑː/.
InMulticultural London English,/θ/ sometimes merges with/t/ but the preceding vowel remains unchanged. That leads to the homophony betweenbath andpath on the one hand andBart andpart on the other. Both pairs are thus pronounced[ˈbɑːt] and[ˈpɑːt], respectively, which is not common in other non-rhotic accents of English that differentiate/ɑː/ from/æ/. That is not categorical, andth-fronting may occur instead and sobath andpath can be[ˈbɑːf] and[ˈpɑːf] instead, as inCockney.
InReceived Pronunciation (RP), thetrap–bath split did not happen in all eligible words. It is hard to find a clear rule for the ones that changed. Roughly, the more common a word, the more likely that its vowel changed from flat/æ/ to broad/ɑː/. It also looks as if monosyllables were more likely to change than polysyllables. The change very rarely took place inopen syllables except if they were closely derived from another word with/ɑː/. Thus, for example,passing is closely derived frompass and so has broad A/ˈpɑːsɪŋ/, whilepassage is not so closely derived and so has flat A/ˈpæsɪd͡ʒ/. Here is the set of words that underwent transition and counterexamples with the same environment:
| RP sets for thetrap–bath split | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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The split created a handful of minimal pairs, such as ant–aunt, caff–calf, cant–can't, have–halve, and staph-staff. There also are some near-minimal pairs, such as ample–sample. In accents withth-fronting (such ascockney), there are additional minimal pairs such as baff–bath and hath–half, and, in accents withth-stopping (which occurs variably inMulticultural London English), there are other minimal pairs such as bat–bath, lat–lath (withlat meaninglatitude) and pat–path. In addition,h-dropping in Cockney creates more minimal pairs such as aff–half (withaff meaningaffirmative) and asp–hasp.
There are some words in which both pronunciations are heard among southern speakers:
Whilegraph, telegraph, photograph can have either form (in Received Pronunciation, they now have broad A),graphic and permutations always have a flat A.
Broad A fluctuates in dialects that include it; befores it is a more common alternative when in its common voiceless variant (/s/ rather than/z/) (intransfer[tɹɑːnsˈfɜː],transport[tɹɑːnˈspɔːt] and variants) than when it is voiced (thustranslate[tɹænzˈleɪt],trans-Atlantic[tɹænzətlæntɪk]).
Some research has concluded that many people in Northern England dislike the/ɑː/ vowel inbath words. AF Gupta writes, 'Many of the northerners were noticeably hostile to/ɡrɑːs/, describing it as "comical", "snobbish", "pompous" or even "for morons"'.[9] Writing on a Labovian study of speech inWest Yorkshire,K. M. Petyt stated in 1985 that several respondents 'positively said that they did not prefer the long-vowel form or that they really detested it or even that it was incorrect'.[11] However, Joan Beal said in a 1989 review of Petyt's work that those who disliked the pronunciation still associated it with the BBC and with the sort of professional positions to which they would aspire.[12]
Evidence for the date of the shift comes from theSouthern Hemisphere accents in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
InAustralian English, there is generally agreement with Southern England in words likepath, laugh, class. However, with the exception ofSouth Australian English and in the specific wordsaunt, can't, shan't in any Australian English, other words with the vowel appearing before/n/ or/m/, such asdance, plant, example, can use the flat A. In Australia, there is variation in words likecastle andgraph; for more information, see the table atVariation in Australian English. In South Australian English, the broad A is usually used. Phonetically, the Australian broad A is[äː].
South African English andNew Zealand English have a sound distribution similar to that of Received Pronunciation; however, the flat A in these accents is [ɛ].
Most accents ofAmerican English andCanadian English are unaffected by the split. The main exceptions are in extinct or older accents of easternNew England (including the early-20th-centuryBoston accent)[13] and possibly the Plantation South, particularlyTidewater Virginia, where the broad sound was used in some of the same words, though usually a smaller number, as in Southern England, such asaunt, ask, bath. (Aunt alone still commonly uses thePALM vowel in New England and Virginia.) By the early 1980s, the broad/a/ was in decline in New England.[13]
Related but distinct phenomena include the following:
In North American English, the non-front realization of continental⟨a⟩ in loanwords such aspasta/ˈpɑstə/ (U.S. only; cf. British and Canadian/ˈpæstə/) is not an example of the trap-bath split because the vast majority of North American English accents do not feature the split in native words. Furthermore, the/ɑ/ realization occurs regardless of the phonetic environment, even in those environments where the lengthening did not take place in the south of England, such as before a bare final/n/ in the German surnameMann/ˈmɑn/ (cf. British/ˈmæn/, homophonous with the native wordman).