“Short” vowels

KIT

Throughout North America and the Caribbean the KIT vowel is a “canonical” high front short [ɪ] , with relatively little variability. Most notably, in Southern dialect (and, consequently, to some extent in AAVE) this vowel can be “drawled” by adding a centralizing offglide, but in the new urban South the drawl, also with this vowel, is regarded as recessive. Raising and fronting to [i] occurs in SurCs, JamE and, conditionally, in NfldE and some contact varieties (CajE, ChcE, JamC, and T&TC [henceforth, this abbreviation is taken to refer to the entire continuum of Trinidad, usually including the mesolectal and acrolectal forms of Tobago but set off against basilectal TobC]); this tensing is also a part of the “Southern Shift”. Centralizing to [ə] is not the norm anywhere but may occur in the dialects of Philadelphia (henceforth abbreviated as PhilE), the inland North (henceforth InlNE), the South (henceforth SAmE), in JamE, and in T&TC and TobC. Centralization of KIT is spreading as an element of the “Northern Cities Shift”. Lowering of this vowel to [ε] seems to be a recent innovation of California speech and of young Canadians.