Inphonology, fronting is a sound change in which a vowelorconsonant becomes fronted, advanced or pronounced farther to the front of the vocal tract than some reference point. The opposite situation, in which a sound becomes pronounced farther to the back of the vocal tract, is called backingorretraction. Fronting may be triggered by a nearby sound, in which case it is a form of assimilation, or may occur on its own.
In the Attic and Ionic dialectsofAncient Greek, Proto-Greek close back /uuː/ were fronted to /yyː/. This change occurred in all cases and was not triggered by a nearby front consonant or vowel.
In many dialects of English, the vowel /uː/ is fronted to [u̟ː]or[ʉː], a sound change that is sometimes called GOOSE-fronting.[2] The same sound change occurred in many dialects of Norwegian and Standard Swedish but not in Danish.
Fronting can also take place as part of a chain shift. For example, in the Northern Cities Shift, the raising of /æ/ left room in the low-front area of the vowel space for [ɑ] to expand. Thus, words like cot and father are often pronounced with a low-front vowel [æ].
