New England English

The ANAE further argues for a division between Northern versus Southern New England English, especially on the basis of the cot–caught merger and /ɑr/ fronting (applying twice, for example, in the phrase Park the car).

Regarding the former feature, all of northern New England (most famously including Boston, but going as far southeast as Cape Cod and as far north as central Maine) historically merges the open and open-mid back rounded vowels (so that, for instance, pond and pawned are pronounced the same, which is commonly called the cot–caught merger), while southern coastal New England (including Rhode Island) historically maintains a noticeable distinction between these two vowels.

[12] The lack of the weak vowel merger is a feature of more traditional New England English, making Lenin /ˈlɛnɪn/ distinct from Lennon /ˈlɛnən/, and rabbit /ˈræbɪt/ fail to rhyme with abbott /ˈæbət/.

All Eastern New England English is famous for non-rhoticity, meaning it drops the r sound everywhere except before a vowel: thus, in words like car, card, fear, and chowder (listenⓘ).

The phrase Park the car in Harvard Yard—dialectally transcribed [pʰak ðə ˈkʰaɹ‿ɪn ˈhavəd ˈjad]—is commonly used as a shibboleth, or speech indicator, for the non-rhotic Eastern New England dialect running from Boston north to Maine, and as far west as Worcester, which contrasts with the rhotic dialects in Western New England and the vast remainder of North America.

[17] In all of Eastern New England except Rhode Island, words like caught and cot are pronounced identically (both are often rounded, thus: [kʰɒt]ⓘ), because those two vowel sounds have fully merged.