Vowels GOAT, GOOSE

One of the features that Philadelphia shares with Southern dialects (and one absent from New York speech) is the fronting of the GOAT and GOOSE vowels. Generally greater degrees of fronting are heard when the vowels appear in “free” positions (i.e., without a following consonant) than in “checked” positions (i.e., with a following consonant). Fronting does not occur in the context of following liquids leading to significant separation of, e.g., the GOAT and GOAL classes. The fronting of GOAT and GOOSE is well established in Philadelphia, though cross-generational data show that it remains an active change.