Distinct Phonological Reanalysis Patterns in Michigan English TRAP

Like many dialects across North America, Michigan English has recently undergone a shift in the pronunciation of TRAP, towards an allophonic split where tokens of /ae/ followed by a nasal (as in hand) are produced as tensed and raised, while all other tokens are produced as lax (Wagner et al., 2016; Nesbitt, 2023). In this paper, we analyze the production of 16 individuals from Michigan who grew up during this period of rapid allophonic shift. For these 16 speakers, who all produce a split between a tense HAND category and a lax TRAP category, we find evidence of three distinct phonological subsystems. The first is a straightforward split conditioned by a following nasal (HAND-TRAP). The second is the HAND-TRAP split plus tensing in words like challenge, where a /l-schwa/ segment intervenes between the /ae/ and the nasal, and the third is the HAND-TRAP split plus tensing in all pre-/l/ tokens of /ae/ (as in chalice). We further find that the birth year and gender breakdown of these 16 speakers suggests that the CHALLENGE and CHALICE systems may constitute 'intermediate' systems between the older single-category Northern Cities Shifted TRAP and the incoming HAND-TRAP split. We end with a brief discussion of the implications of our findings for both phonology and sound change.