Date of Award
5-1-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A. in Modern Languages
First Advisor
Vance Schaefer
Second Advisor
Felice Coles
Third Advisor
Daniel Valle Arevalo
School
University of Mississippi
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
The pin-pen merger’s geographic dispersion in the American South is not fully understood. The merger can appear on the periphery of the South but has little to no presence in some long-established Southern cities, and the factors associated with this pattern remain unclear. This study investigates whether historical population size and racial composition are associated with the merger’s presence/absence in data from two Linguistic Atlas Projects, LAGS and LAMSAS. Utilizing pronunciations of the word ten from speakers in 19 Deep Southern cities represented in the two LAPs, I paired these tokens with statistics from the 1880 U.S. Census on the total population and the proportion of residents classified as “Colored”. A mixed-effects logistic regression model assessed the relationship between merger occurrence in the data and these historical variables, with responses clustered by town. The results reveal a significant negative association between city populations in 1880 and the likelihood of merged pronunciation of ten from individuals in the dataset, with a decreased likelihood of merger for larger 1880 populations. The proportions “Colored” showed a non-significant effect on merger occurrence, contrary to the expectations based in prior literature. The study highlights the relationship between historical demographic factors and dialect features, and the patterns are consistent with the possibility that rural–urban dynamics are relevant to the merger in addition to regional and racial patterns. Further research could better separate these factors and implement random samples in order to make broader generalizations about the spread of the merger.
Recommended Citation
Depner, Matthew Steven, "Size and Sound: The Relationship Between 1880 Populations and The Pin-Pen Merger" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 8811.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/8811