Phoneme /ɔː/ in General American

This phonetics article is adapted for General American, with very little reference to other accents. See also Phoneme /ɔː/ in General American (international version). For British English and received pronunciation please see IPA phoneme /ɔː/ and IPA phoneme /ɒ/.

Open-mid back rounded vowel Open-mid back rounded vowel {{{1}}} In General American the IPA phonetic symbol /ɔː/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "thought" and "cloth", and also "north" and "force". Sometimes the triangular colon /ː/ is replaced by a normal colon, as in /ɔ:/. Most American dictionaries don't write the triangular colon at all: thought /θɔt/.

In a non-rhotic accent /ɔːr/ is pronounced [ɔː] unless it is followed by a vowel, i.e. when the spelling has an "r", it is normally silent unless it is followed by a vowel.

In General American the "r" in /ɔːr/ is always pronounced. Many people pronounce /ɔː/ and /ɔːr/ with different vowels (e.g. sauce as [sɔs] and source as [sors]); however since the difference is predictable there is no problem using the same symbol in both cases (e.g. /sɔːs/ and /sɔːrs/).

There are places in the United Kingdom where /ɔːr/ is pronounced [ɔːr], and places in North America where /r/ is silent.

Common words

Some common words containing /ɔː/ include the following:

• with "o"^AmE: across, along, cloth, cost, cross, dog, gone, long, loss, lost, off, offer, office, often, soft, song, strong, wrong

• with "oa": abroad, broad
• with "ough": ought, thought

past tense and past participle: bought, brought, fought, sought, thought

• with "ou": cough^AmE
• with "a": warrant^AmE, warranty^AmE, water
• with "al": almost, already, also, alter, always, chalk, false, salt, talk, walk
• with "all": all, ball, call, fall, hall, mall, small, tall, wall
• with "aw": dawn, draw, flaw, hawk, jaw, law, lawn, lawyer, raw, saw, shawl, thaw, yawn
• with "au": auction, audience, August, Aussie^AmE, austerity, Australia^AmE, Austria^AmE, author, autumn, cause, clause, daughter, fault, launch, pause

past tense and past participle: caught, taught

Words marked ^AmE are pronounced with /ɒ/ in Received Pronunciation.

• because:

AmE: /bɪˈkɔːz, bɪˈkʌz/

BrE: /bɪˈkɒz, bɪˈkəz/

/ɔːr/

Some common words containing /ɔːr/ include the following:

• with "or": afford - born - cork - for - force - fork - form - horse - ignore - important - lord - morning - nor - north - or - order - pork - report - short - sport - storm - support - sword
• with "ore": adore - before - bore - core - explore - more - score - store - wore
• with "oor": door - floor
• with "oar": boar - board - oar - roar - soar
• with "our": course - court - four - pour - your
• with "ar": award - quarter - reward - war - warm - warn

Homophones: bore - boar; bored - board; or - oar - ore - Orr; soared - sword - sward

Less common words

• corp - deplore - furore - gore - implore - lore - Orr - pore - restore - port - shore - sward - torr - ward - yore

/ɔː/, /ɑː/ or /ɒ/

Note that /ɒ/ and /ɑː/ sound identically in most of North America. The following words may sound /ɔː/, /ɑː/ or (in very few locations) /ɒ/.

Labeled /ɑː, ɔː/ in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD)

• chocolate, on, wash

Labeled /ɔː, ɑː/ in OALD

• across, alcohol, along, Boston,^(*) long, lost, off, offer, office, often, warranty

(*) Pronunciation not available in OALD; it was taken from Random House Dictionary.

/ɔːr/, /ɑːr/ or /ɒr/

See Pronunciation exercises: "orV" and "orrV"

The following 5 words are pronounced with /ɑː/ in General American and with /ɒ/ or /ɔː/ in other parts of North America:

• borrow - morrow (shortening of "tomorrow") - sorrow - sorry - tomorrow

The following words are pronounced with /ɔː/ in most of North America, including the General American dialect, and with /ɑː/ or /ɒ/ in specific parts of North America:

• correspond - Florida - foreign - forest - historical - majority - moral - orange - origin - priority

Cot-caught merger

Main article: Cot-caught merger

In many parts of North America (about half the United States and all of Canada) /ɑː/ and /ɔː/ sound the same. This is in addition to the father - bother merger, where /ɑː/ and /ɒ/ sound the same. This means that caught /ɔː/, cot /ɒ/, father /ɑː/ and bother /ɒ/ have all the same stressed vowel /ɑː/. In this accent /ɔː/ appears only followed by /r/, as in "north" or "force". In this accent the pronunciation of /ɔːr/ may be [or], [oər], [ɔr] or [ɔːr].

Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1

Preconceived ideas and other interferences from L1 obviously interfere in many cases with how students perceive - and pronounce - sounds/words in English. The following sections aims to point out some of the most typical difficulties teachers and students may encounter regarding pronunciation.

Spanish

Many Spanish speakers will pronounce the short o sound as /ɔː/ even when it should be pronounced /ɑː/: lot as */lɔːt/.

It is not uncommon to hear them pronouncing */ˈalsəʊ/ or */alˈtɜːrnatɪv/.

See also

• Homophone
• Pronunciation