A Phonemic and Phonetic Analysis of the Folk Speech of Bedford County, Tennessee

Author

Anthony Patterson Cavender, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Date of Award

6-1974

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Anthropology

Major Professor

Norbert Riedl

Committee Members

Nathalia Wright, Harry M. Lindquist, Alan R. Thomas

Abstract

Until recently, no systematic study of Tennessee folk speech had been performed. This study, descriptive in scope, will help fill a void and provide valuable data for determining Tennessee's relationship to other American dialects.

Five informants, each one fitting Hans Kurath's Type I, Group A classification, were interviewed using The Questionnaire for the Investigation of American Regional English: Based on the Work Sheets of the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada (Orton and Wright, 1972). The phonological material obtained from the five tape recorded interviews is presented in a unitary phonemic system along with characteristic allophonic and free variation (incidence of the phonemes).

Recommended Citation

Cavender, Anthony Patterson, "A Phonemic and Phonetic Analysis of the Folk Speech of Bedford County, Tennessee. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1974.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/4175