firewell
Member
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2009
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Russian
- Home Country
- Ukraine
- Current Location
- United States
I'm noticing a conflict between various sources (which I think are all American) on how to pronounce "caught" and similar words. The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary gives "caught" the same pronunciation as "cot", i.e. /kɑt/. In Merriam Webster and dictionary.com (wherever it's sourced from), the pronunciation of "caught" is /kɔt/, while "cot" is still /kɑt/. I have to assume this is a dialectical difference. So my question is, where is it pronounced one way vs the other, and what is the dominant pronunciation in the US Midwest in particular?