phonological patterns FLEECE, FACE, GOAT, GOAL

These long vowels differ characteristically by environment in StAmE: they are longest and most likely to be diphthongal before juncture, next most likely to be long and/or diphthongal before voiced consonants, and most likely to be realized without added length and without glides before unvoiced consonants. Thus in word sets like the following there may be graded variation in the vowel: flee, feed, fleece  ; fay, fade, face ; go, goad, goat . Monophthongized variants in all environments are characteristic of educated speakers from the Upper Midwest.