Phonological Characteristics
Fieldwork conducted in the 1930s shows the region split evenly on the horse–hoarse merger: some speakers maintained the contrast (as did speakers in Upstate New York at the time), while others had lost the contrast (as in the Philadelphia accent). Today, however, the merger is complete in the region (and indeed in most of North American English).
The Mary–marry–merry merger is complete, although the accents of nearby New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania still maintain a two- or three-way distinction here.
The cot–caught merger is in transition in Northeast Pennsylvania English. The merger is found to the west, in Pittsburgh English and the Central Pennsylvania accent, but not to the north, east and south of the Wyoming Valley.
Northeast Pennsylvania English undergoes the Northern cities vowel shift, but not to the same extent as, say, Buffalo English. The vowel /æ/ shows considerable raising and diphthongization before nasal consonants, so that ban is pronounced approximately, but before oral consonants, there is only moderate raising, and the vowel remains more open than /ɛ/, so that bad is pronounced approximately . Northeast Pennsylvania English has non-phonemic æ-tensing of the continuous variety, which means that /æ/ is raised more before /n/ than before /d/ and more before /d/ than before /ɡ/. The vowel /ɑ/ is considerably fronted, so a word like hot is pronounced . Finally, the vowels /ɛ/ as in bet and /ʌ/ as in but are retracted (articulated further back in the mouth) in comparison to the pronunciation in more conservative accents like General American.
The transitional nature of Northeast Pennsylvania English between the North and the Midland is shown clearly by the pronunciation of the diphthongs /aɪ/ (as in pine) and /aʊ/ (as in town). In the North, the nucleus of /aʊ/ is considerably further back than that of /aɪ/, so that town is pronounced . In the Midland (and indeed most of the rest of the United States), it is the nucleus of /aɪ/ that is further back, so that pine is . But in northeastern Pennsylvania, the nuclei of the two diphthongs are pronounced in nearly the same position, as an open central vowel, so that pine is and town is .
Read more about this topic: Northeast Pennsylvania English