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-TensingIn the sociolinguistics of English, -tensing is a process that occurs in some accents of American English by which the vowel is raised and lengthened or diphthongized in various environments. The realization of this "tense " varies from to to to , depending on the speaker's regional accent. The environment in which the tensing happens also varies from accent to accent: in some accents, it occurs only before nasal consonants in the same syllable (e.g. man ), in others it may also occur before voiceless fricatives and sometimes also voiced stops. In some areas, such as Philadelphia and New York City, and may even contrast, e.g. "Yes, I vs. "tin In accents that have undergone the Northern cities vowel shift, there is no contrast, but is the only realization of the phoneme Accents of the Midwest and West, as well as Canadian English, do not have -tensing.
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