Pittsburgh Speech and Pittsburghese

✍ Scribed by Barbara Johnstone; Daniel Baumgardt; Maeve Eberhardt; Scott Kiesling

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2015
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 126
• Series: Dialects of English [DOE]; 11
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Linguists have sporadically noted peculiarities of pronunciation, lexis and morphosyntax in the speech of European Americans in the Pittsburgh area, and Pittsburgh speech, locally known as “Pittsburghese”, has been a topic of discussion in the Pittsburgh area for decades. This variety has never before been systematically documented, however. The first and only scholarly book to describe Pittsburgh-area varieties of English, Pittsburgh Speech and Pittsburghese is an essential reference tool for anyone studying the dialect of the Pittsburgh area and the only textbook choice for anyone teaching about it.

✦ Table of Contents

Table of contents
Acknowledgments
A note on notation
Chapter 1. Geography, demography, and culture
1.1 Introduction
1.2 History and topography
1.3 Current demographics
1.4 Pittsburgh as a dialect area
1.5 Data and methods
Chapter 2. Phonetics and phonology
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Mergers and a split
2.2.1 The low back merger
2.2.2 Mergers before /l/
2.2.3 Split of TRAP and STAN
2.3 Phonetic shifts
2.3.1 The Pittsburgh Chain Shift
2.3.2 Fronting of GOOSE and GOAT
2.4 Monophthongization
2.4.1 Monophthongization of MOUTH
2.4.2 Monophthongization of PRICE
2.5 Consonantal features
2.5.1 L-vocalization and /l/-insertion
2.5.2 Epenthetic /r/ before /?/
2.6 Regional word forms
Chapter 3. Morphology and syntax
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Complementation of need, want, and like
3.3 Positive anymore
3.4 Punctual whenever
3.5 Merger of leave and let
3.6 Preposition-noun compounding
3.7 Yinz
Chapter 4. Lexis and discourse
4.1 Introduction
4.2 A glossary of Pittsburgh English
4.3 Word-formation processes
4.3.1 Borrowing
4.3.2 Derivation
4.3.3 Compounding
4.3.4 Semantic re-analysis
4.3.5 Phonological re-analysis
4.3.6 Reduplication
4.3.7 Contraction
4.3.8 Metathesis
4.3.9 Trade names
4.3.10 Euphemism
4.4 Discourse marking features
4.4.1 Pennsylvania Dutch question intonation
4.4.2 N’at
4.5 Discussion
Chapter 5. African American English in Pittsburgh
5.1 Introduction
5.2 African Americans in Pittsburgh
5.3 Features of supraregional AAVE
5.4 Regional phonological features
5.5 Other regional features
5.6 Pittsburghese: monophthongal MOUTH and yinz
5.7 Conclusions
Chapter 6. History and trajectory
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Scotch-Irish
6.2.1 From Scotch-Irish English to American English
6.3 Other influences on Pittsburgh speech
6.4 Attitudes towards Pittsburgh speech
6.5 From Pittsburgh speech to Pittsburghese
6.5.1 What does hahs sound like?
6.5.2 Noticing local speech
6.5.3 Pittsburghese in the daily papers
6.5.4 The “New Yinzers”
6.6 The future?
Appendix. Annotated bibliography
1 Web sources about American dialects
2 Print sources about American dialects
3 Web sources about speech in Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania
4 Print sources on speech in Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania
5 Print sources on Pittsburghese
References
Index