What [ju] know about that?: Changing patterns of glide deletion in memphis African American English
Glide deletion occurs in several English varieties: speakers delete /j/ before /u/, pronouncing words like tune [tun] rather than [tjun], a change from the historical pattern (Phillips, 1994; Pabst, 2022). Deletion may vary according to social and phonological factors, but the phenomenon remains underdescribed (Phillips, 1994; Pabst, 2022). Our study betters understanding of English variation by exploring glide deletion among speakers of African American English in Memphis, Tennessee. 29 Black AAE speakers (women = 23), ages 21–74, read a wordlist with /ju/ words. Recordings were aligned and segmented using the MFA, with subsequent vowel extraction and delta F normalization (Johnson, 2020). We measured F2 maximum-F2 minimum and F2 trajectory, then conducted linear mixed effects regression models and GAMMs with gender, neighborhood, and age (continuous) as independent variables. Model results indicate F2 max-F2 min is significantly lower for men than women (p < 0.05), indicating more monophthongal productions of historical /ju/. F2 trajectory differs by neighborhood, with East Memphis residents demonstrating less F2 movement than others (p < 0.05). Additionally, older speakers have greater F2 movement than younger speakers. Altogether, results indicate a change in progress, with younger speakers, women, and non-East Memphis residents leading the change.