17 The CHOICE Lexical Set
A Closing Diphthong goes from wherever the nucleus starts to a close coda. The most common type of choice is a closing diphthong, where the nucleus of the diphthong is mid back [ɔ ~ o], which then off-glides towards [ɪ̯], so we have [ɔɪ̯ ~ oɪ̯]. There is a lot of agreement between accents on the Lexical Incidence of which words have choice, so identifying which words have this vowel is usually quite simple, even for those who have a merger of choice with another set, usually price. It should be noted that choice words are not high frequency words, and that they come up in samples of speech far less often than words from other lexical sets.
choice can be in both Free and Checked syllables, both stressed and unstressed. Many choice vowels in unstressed syllables are the result of compound words, such as ballpoint, multiple-choice, topsoil.
- 🕊 Free: does not require a following consonant, and can exist on its own, e.g. Oy!
- in stressed and unstressed syllables
Spellings
choice: ‹oi, oiCe, oy›, as in joist, voice, boy
Though Wells sets out 3 sub-groups for choice, they represent historical divisions in choice based on the merging of pronunciations of [ɔi, ui, i] in the 19th century that have no impact on contemporary accents. It is interesting that all choice words were initially loan words from other languages, mostly French. I have decided to ignore Wells’ sub-grouping here, and refer anyone who is working on historical accents before the 19th century to Wells’ analysis.
Pronunciations
The most common type of choice is a closing diphthong, where the nucleus of the diphthong is mid back [ɔ ~ ɔ̝ ~ o̞ ~ o], which then off-glides towards [ɪ̯ ~ i̯], so we have [ɔɪ̯ ~ ɔ̝ɪ̯ ~ o̞ɪ̯ ~ oɪ̯] or [ɔi̯ ~ ɔ̝i̯ ~ o̞i̯ ~ oi̯]. The raised variant, with [o] as nucleus, happens in Southern Hemisphere Englishes (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa), in part as a response to the opening of face [æɪ̯], and the backing and rounding of price [ɒɪ̯]; this process is known as a push chain shift.
There are three other variants for choice, some of which may be merged with price: a mid-centralized version of [əɪ̯] heard, for example, in parts of Newfoundland; an open rounded version, [ɒɪ̯], which one might hear in Ireland and parts of Southern England; and an open, unrounded version, [aɪ̯ ~ ɑɪ̯] that one hears in parts of the Caribbean.
Perhaps it comes as no surprise that there is a monophthongal variant of choice, found in the South of the US. This appears to mostly be an allophonic change, in the environment of choice + /l/ or /s/, such as boil, oil, spoil, toilet, or moisture, oyster, voice. The Atlas of North American English states that “Glide deletion” of choice is well recognized by Southerners, and that, though it is “more common in the eastern section of the South, it is not concentrated in any one geographic area” (Labov et al, 252).
The nucleus of choice is usually more advanced than the nucleus of mouth, but not always. In cases where ch