I was recently in a discussion with a friend about the pronunciation of "attribute" as either a noun or a verb. I resorted to OED's authority to back up my own suspicions, and found the pronunciations:
Noun: /ˈatrɪbjuːt/
Verb: /əˈtrɪbjuːt/
For the most part, particularly with regard to the syllable that carries emphasis, this makes sense to me, but I was somewhat surprised at the noun. I'm rather new to the study of pronunciation, but my understanding is that /ˈatrɪbjuːt/ would sound like "Ah" + "Tribute." The first syllable, if I understand correctly, would rhyme with "Rot."
As a native American English speaker, I think of the first syllable of the noun form as rhyming with "Cat," and so it seems to me that there should be an AmE transcription as well, along the lines of:
/ˈætrɪbjuːt/ (bold emphasis mine)
My question is twofold:
Is my understanding of the OED pronunciations accurate, that its given noun transcription would rhyme with "rot," at least in BrE?
Should there be a separate pronunciation notated for American English? And would /ˈætrɪbjuːt/ be the common accepted form?
I will note that a similar question was asked here (Pronunciation of "Attribute") but it does not address what I am asking (and it has no answers).
For a little extra clarification based on comments, here is what I am seeing in the noun entry for "attribute" in Oxford English Dictionary: