Episode 20: lot, cloth, thought

Great Scott! Hosts Phil & Eric think awfully hard on the sounds of the lexical sets lot, cloth, thought. A set up for the trifecta (tetrafecta?) of our next few shows, in this episode we talk through the sounds typically associated with these lexical sets, particularly in “standard” accents like Received Pronunciation, so-called General American, Canadian, and the tendency for cloth to merge with either lot or thought.

Typical Sounds encountered in these lexical sets range from

a type a
ɑ script a
ɒ turned script a
ɔ open o

Diacritics discussed:
o̞ lowered
o̝ raised
o̘ Advanced Tongue Root (forward)
o̙ Retracted Tongue Root (back)
o̟ Advanced
o̠ retracted
o̽ mid-centralized
ö centralized
o̹ rounded
o̜ unrounded