Date:  Tue, 20 Jun 1995 19:48:45 -0500

From:  Daniel S Goodman <dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU>

Subject: Re: Maps



On Tue, 20 Jun 1995, William A. Kretzschmar, Jr. wrote:



> I am not aware of any recent attempts to draw a New York City dialect

> area. Carver's 1987 *American Regional Dialects* (with DARE evidence from

> the 70s) doesn't do it, but does mention Metro New York in several places.

> Labov has treated New York as a dialect in his work on modern urban sound

> change (his *Principles of Linguistic Change*, Blackwell 1994, will give

> pretty comprehensive references). Aside from those two, studies I know

> come from before the 1960s.

Thank you. I have the Carver book, and will look for the Labov book.



I suspect there are people in the field who would be happy to investigate

my question if I could provide the funding....



> Whether or not Bayonne, NJ, belongs to a putative NYC dialect or not

> seems to me to ask for sharp boundaries where none are to be expected.

> The entire NYC-Philadelphia corridor seems to be pretty heavily populated

> with people who work in either NYC or Philadelphia, so one might expect

> heavy influences from the big cities throughout the region (of course

> more influences the closer one is to either city).



Understood. I grew up on or near what should, in theory, be the western

boundary between the Hudson Valley and Upstate New York dialects. I've

never been able to hear the difference.



Dan Goodman dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu