Lexical sets for the phonological description of Irish English

Tables 21 and 22 use the lexical sets as originally introduced by John Wells in the early 1980s. Certain adaptions and extensions of Wells’ original set are necessary for the correct description of Irish English, for instance the PRICE vowel can have a different realization before voiceless and voiced consonants. In addition the NORTH and FORCE sets must be kept separate, though increasingly with supraregional speakers in the south, a distinction is not made between the vowels in each of these words.

The five columns in each table correspond to the five sound samples.