The Canadian shift (the KIT, DRESS, and TRAP sets)
Labov (1991) proposed a three-dialect model of North American English based on two key phonological variables and their consequent phonetic developments. In this model, Canadian English was classified with several other dialects that appeared to show relative phonetic stability, compared to the complex patterns of chain-shifting that characterized the Northern and Southern dialects. A few years later, Clarke, Elms, and Youssef (1995) published a report on what they called the Canadian Shift, asserting that, far from being phonetically stable, Canadian English was involved in its own set of phonetic shifts, primarily affecting /ɪ/ , /ε/, and /æ/, the KIT, DRESS, and TRAP sets. The young Ontario speakers they studied showed a retraction of /æ/ to [a] (filling the low-central space made available by the low-back, LOT-THOUGHT merger), a lowering of /ε/ toward /æ/, and a lowering of /ɪ/ toward /ε/. The most salient aspect of this chain shift, especially in the larger North American context, is the retraction of /æ/. The resulting quality is similar to that heard in the TRAP and BATH sets in Northern British English, in contrast with the fully fronted and often raised quality of /æ/ in much of the United States, and in particular in the American varieties spoken in the Inland Northern region along the border with central Canada. In fact, the Canadian Shift and the Northern Cities Shift (Labov 1991, 1994) involve directly opposite developments of the low vowels, so that the TRAP class in much Canadian speech has virtually the same vowel quality as the LOT class in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. The productions [hat] and [kap] would designate items of headwear in Ontario, but would be the opposite of cold and an informal term for a police officer across the border in southeastern Michigan or Western New York.
