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Word-level distributions and structural factors codetermine GOOSE fronting

We analyse dynamic formant data from a corpus of Derby English spanning three generations, focusing on the relationship between yod-dropping and GOOSE (/uː/)-fronting. Derby English exhibits a stable but variable pattern of yod-dropping in postcoronal position (e.g. new [njuː]~[nuː]), and an ongoing process of /uː/-fronting. The degree of /uː/fronting is highest in words which categorically include yod (e.g. cube) and lower in words which never show a yod (e.g. noodle). Words with variable yod-dropping exhibit intermediate degrees of fronting. The degree of fronting in variable words is partly determined by how frequent the lexical item is: frequent words undergo more fronting than infrequent words. Although this result can be attributed to increased coarticulation with yod in frequent forms, it also affects tokens where the yod is absent. We suggest that these results provide evidence for phonetic coherence at the level of the word as well as phoneme and allophone categories.