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Cot - Caught merger

A vowel merger occurs when a dialect stops distinguishing between two vowel sounds that used to be completely separate, making word pairs sound identical (homophones).

In the cot–caught merger, the unrounded open back vowel [ɑ] (as in cot) and the rounded open-mid back vowel [ɔ] (as in caught) blend into a single vowel sound.

  1. The Unrounded Open Back Vowel [ɑ]: This is the most common result in General American and Canadian English. Words like cot, caught, bot, bought, Don, and Dawn are all pronounced with the open "ah" sound (like the vowel in father).

  2. The Open-Mid Back Vowel [ɒ] or [ɔ]: In some specific regional dialects (like parts of Western Pennsylvania or Canada), the merged vowel leans slightly more rounded or raised, sounding closer to a short "aw".