Meaning of cot-caught merger | Babel Free
ˈkɑt kɔt ˌmɝd͡ʒɚDefinitions
A phonemic merger in some varieties of English (especially American, Canadian and Scottish English) in which the vowels in words such as hot and doll (/ɒ/) and in words such as law and talk (/ɔː/) are pronounced identically, making the words cot and caught homophones.
Examples
“One was /au/-monophthongisation, described earlier in Chapter 2, while the second was the so-called low-back merger (LBM), also referred to as the cot–caught merger because words in these two classes are pronounced the same and speakers cannot hear any small differences in their pronunciation, even when they are present.”
CEFR level
B2
Upper Intermediate
This word is part of the CEFR B2 vocabulary — upper intermediate level.
This word is part of the CEFR B2 vocabulary — upper intermediate level.
See also
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