Perceptions of /a/ fronting Across Two Michigan Dialects 233boundary between /a/ and /æ/ for each group. A subject-by-subject analysis
showed no signi¿ cant difference between the cross-over point means for
the two respondent groups (t(16) = 0.24; p > 0.05). This indicates that even
though there were a number of speci¿ c phonetic differences between the UP
and LM vowel systems (especially regarding vowels /æ/, /͑/, a n d /a /, s e e Fig-
ure 9.4), both groups shared a similar general representation of the /a/—/æ/
category boundary.
Figure 9.6 Results of the qualifying test. The upper panel shows the probability that
a vowel stimulus item was judged as /æ/ (dark line) or /a/ (light line) by
respondents from the UP (n=9). The lower panel shows the results for
respondents for LM (n=9).