Vowels MOUTH

The MOUTH vowel is generally rendered as /au/, and less often /aɔ/. /o/ occurs in some MOUTH words like shower, towel, vowel [ʃoa, toεl, voεl], having merged with the GOAT set. Devour merges with the FORCE set and is pronounced [di'vɔ]  by a large number of educated speakers. When the MOUTH vowel is followed by another vowel, /u/ is converted to [w] by the Glide Formation rule, yielding pronunciations like [alawans] allowance, [kawat] coward, [pawa] power.