You Best Button [bʌɾən] it up: An American English Change-in-progress with People Identified as Black Taking the Lead
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In American English, the pronunciation of words like ‘button’, with the underlying post-tonic string /tən/, is variable. Previous research has found that although the traditional pronunciation of these words is with [ʔn], as in [bʌʔn], there are also pronunciations with [ʔən], as in [bʌʔən], which could represent either a case of stable variation or a change-in-progress (Eddington and Brown 2021, Davidson et al. 2021). Repetti-Ludlow (2024) found that the realization of /ən/ as [ən] on Long Island, New York, indeed seems to be a change-in-progress. Additionally, she found several instances of /t/ realized as [ɾ], but only preceding [ən], resulting in the pronunciation [bʌɾən]. The current study builds on this research by expanding the data pool from 60 participants from a predominantly white Long Island speech community to 108 participants of different regional and racial identity backgrounds. Findings suggest that this change in progress intersects with both region and racial identity.