Prosodic features

Wells (1982) points out that many Northern dialects, the WM dialect included, tend not to reduce vowels in unstressed Latinate prefixes (e.g. con-, ex-) as much as do RP and Southern-based varieties. Such a tendency was indeed noted in the BCDP audio data.

Although relatively little work has so far been done on dialect intonation, Wells (1982: 91) points out that certain British accents (including Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle and Glasgow) appear to have some tendency to use rising tones where most other accents have falling tones. Such tendencies are also noted by Biddulph (1986: 3), who suggests that WM speech characteristically has a “peculiar” intonation involving terminal raising in statements, as well as negative verbs (such as <wor> wasn’t/weren’t) taking a markedly high tone.

Wells (1982: 93) also points out that the working-class accents of the WM dialect (as well as Liverpool and some New York) characteristically have a velarized voice quality (with the centre of gravity of the tongue backer and higher than for other accents).