Becker (2019) argues that the LBMS is a ''structural'' change. It is initiated by the phonetic movement of BOT, but does not require completion of the Low Back Merger.

We ought distinguish structural changes from phonetic drift. A structural change is one in which the system of contrasts in the language changes. A non-structural change is when the phonetic implementation of a contrast changes without a change in the contrast itself. It's not clear that this is what Becker (2019) means by the term "structural".

----
Related to LowBackVowelJournalSubmission

 * Why look at more than F1 F2
 * Why are additional dimensions important for understanding diachronic change?
 * All vowel analyses require a vowel model---i.e. an operationalization of the acoustic space that lends itself to statistical analysis
  * Representign vowels as points in F1-F2 space is a robust vowel model but insufficient for questions of merger
 * What is a merger?

What's the argument I want to make? 

----
CategoryBrickhouse