Vowels before /r/ NORTH, FORCE

These two sets are merged for most speakers of NfldE, with usual pronunciations of [oɹ] or [ɔɹ]. Older working-class (especially rural) speakers, however, display a variable tendency towards lowering, fronting and unrounding of the pre-/r/ vowel in words such as morning, corner, and cork, resulting in such highly stigmatized pronunciations as [ɐɹ] or [aɹ]. For such speakers, then, the range of articulation of the NORTH set may overlap with that of the START set in casual speech; the FORCE set, however, may remain distinct, in that it does not exhibit full lowering and unrounding.