Vowels MARRY, MERRY, MARY

The Linguistic Atlas records reported a two-way contrast for these vowels with /æ/ in MARRY and /ε/ in MERRY and MARY. More recent evidence indicates that MERRY and MARY remain separate in Philadelphia. Further supporting these reports of a contrast is the observation that MERRY items often appear with something like [Λ], which results in a merger (or close approximation) of merry ~ Murray, ferry ~ furry, etc.