found in the late 17th century), and Latinate or Greek borrowings were rarely broadened. A particularly interesting case is that of the word father. In late Middle English this was generally pronounced , thus rhyming with gather . Broadening of father is notable both in two respects: its occurrence before an intervocalic voiced fricative its distribution in many accents that do not otherwise have broadening, such as those of North America. The Oxford English Dictionary describes the broadening of father as "anomalous". Dobson, however, sees broadening in father as due to the influence of the adjacent and combined. Rather and lather appear to have been subject to broadening later, and in fewer varieties of English, by analogy with father. The table below represents the results of broadening before fricatives in contemporary Received Pronunciation. * indicates that the other pronunciation is also current in RP. ** indicates that this word had late Middle English (possibly in addition to late Middle English ) Words in italics were first recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary later than 1650 In general, all these words, to the extent that they existed in Middle English, had ("short A" as in trap) which was broadened to . The exceptions are: half and calf, which had been pronounced with in early Middle English before developing around the early 15th century to by L-vocalization. In accents of England the development was subsequently the same as that in words such as palm (see below). The North American development to as in trap seems to be the result of shortening from to , although there is little evidence of this development. laugh, laughter and draft/draught, which all had in Middle English. This first changed to (accepted in Standard English from about 1625, but earlier in dialects), and was then shortened to . The subsequent development was similar to other words with , such as staff. The development of draft/draught is notable: in the 17th century it was usually spelled draught and pronounced to rhyme with caught, making clear its derivation from the verb to draw. The pronunciation with was rare, and its use in current English is a historical accident resulting, according to Dobson, from the establishment of the spelling variant draft. The words castle, fasten and raspberry are special cases where subsequent sound changes have altered the conditions initially responsible for lengthening. In castle and fasten, the was pronounced, according