Diphthongs CHOICE

Speakers of St NfldE distinguish the CHOICE set from the PRICE/PRIZE sets as do standard speakers elsewhere in North America, via the use of a rounded mid back [ɔ] or [o] onset in CHOICE words. More conservative (i.e. older, rural, working-class) NfldE speakers, however, exhibit a marked tendency to unround the nucleus of CHOICE, and to pronounce it as [Λ, ə, ɐ] , and even fully lowered [ɑ] or [a]. This leads to considerable overlapping of variants which characterize both the PRICE and CHOICE sets. In at least the casual style of some conservative speakers, total merger may occur; others appear to keep the two sets distinct via a greater degree of retraction and rounding for the PRICE set.