Effects of Consonantal Context on the Pronunciation of /æ/ 83which pre-nasal raising of /æ/ is not a diagnostic feature. More importantly
for the present study, none of the Texas Mexican American speakers whose
vowels charts are shown in his 2001 book have a dramatically raised pre-
nasal /æ/. Therefore, the presence of a high position for pre-nasal /æ/ in all six
women under the age of 25 in the present study indicates strong NCS inÀ u-
ence. In the Mexican American speech community in Lansing, raising of /æ/
before nasals may be as indicative of NCS inÀ uence as any overall change
in vowel means. Furthermore, if young women are the leaders of change in
this speech community as in many others, this ¿ nding also indicates that the
Mexican American speech community in Lansing is headed towards fuller
accommodation to NCS patterns in the production of /æ/.
Neither Stevens and House (1963) nor Hillenbrand et al. (2001) examined
vowels in the nasal environment. Stevens and House state “nasal consonants
were not included because of the dif¿ culties of measuring formant frequen-
cies for nasalized vowels” (112). Hillenbrand et al. focus on stop consonants
and make no comment about nasal environments.
Figure 3.3 Plotnik chart of /æ/ tokens for Solana, age 22, third generation.