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I've heard that in some cities in the US like LA and Florida, the 'aw' sound is pronounced as 'ah' such as slaughter, daughter, dog, water. They mostly are pronounced with the 'ah' sound rather than the 'aw' sound.

So is this a major rule thing; Does the 'aw' truly not exist in some places and is pronounced as 'ah'?

If so, that means 'tall' can be pronounced as 'tall' right?

Here's a link that has the word pronounced by many US speakers: https://forvo.com/word/tall/#en

Dannie
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    Some degree of the 'cot-caught merger' and related shifts is certainly a fact of most US and some UK dialects. But what do you mean by 'right'? The pronunciation is neither obligatory nor prohibited. See Wikipedia – StoneyB on hiatus Oct 07 '17 at 13:51
  • I just read the article. Correct me if I am mistaken, according to the cot-caught merger, 'tall' will be pronounced as 'tol' as in 'cot' rather than 'tawl'. In other words, it is fine to replace the 'aw' sound with the 'ah' sound as it's becoming more widespread among the youth "(using telephone surveys), younger speakers in Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas exhibit the merger while speakers older than 40 typically do not.". – Dannie Oct 07 '17 at 14:14
  • Do these youths in the breadbasket of the country say "fall" the same way? – TimR Oct 07 '17 at 14:18
  • Apparently not. I just checked this link: https://forvo.com/word/fall/ EHH this is really confusing! – Dannie Oct 07 '17 at 14:40
  • @Dannie Note however the very low degree of rounding in NipponJapan's pronunciation there. A larger sample would probably furnish you an example of /fɑl/, or something very close. There's very wide variation in the pronunciation of most vowels in various environments, and the low-back vowels are particularly fluid. A lot beside oral quality goes into hearers' assignment of phonemes. – StoneyB on hiatus Oct 07 '17 at 15:40

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According to Gimson's Pronunciation of English:

There is also no distinction between /ɔː/ and /ɒ/ in General American. Words which have /ɒ/ in GB usually have /ɑː/ in GA but a minority have /ɔː/, e.g. across, trough, coffee. The quality of the vowel in General American is generally more open (= [ɔː]) than in GB.

In addition, the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary gives alternate pronunciations with /ɔː/ and /ɑː/ for across, trough, coffee in GA.

In light of this information, it seems that learners of GA can disregard /ɔː/ entirely and use always /ɑː/.

Ernest A
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It's always tawl and never tahl. Tahl sounds like something someone with an Indian or South Asian accent would say.

Abdussamad
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