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Sunday, 20 March 2016
/r/ in preconsonantal positions in GB
Do you know John Maidment's SID? If not, take a look at it here; it's highly recommendable! Once you're there, click the letter R and then the headword rhotic. The last but one sentence is the one that made me write this short blog. I had never before questioned the claim that in General British as an accent of low rhoticity (or non-rhotic accent as some prefer to call it) the letter <r> is never pronounced in a preconsonantal position, e.g. in harm, form, torture. John draws our attention to one of the admittedly rare exceptions - ferrule, which is pronounced /ˈferuːl/ or /ˈferjuːl/. Are there any other words?
Here's a short list:
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Pre-consonantal /r/ may occur in GB also as a result of elision, as in, for example, 'Dorothy' /ˈdɒɹθi/. See Cruttenden's GIMSON (2014), p. 86 and p. 256.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the SID plug, Petr.
ReplyDeleteAnother source of pre-consonantal /r/ is words ending in in the spelling. For example, /sɪəriəs/ → /sɪərjəs/.
As a rider to Alex's point, it has occurred to me that /r/ miɡht also appear before /w/. Take for example words like and : /rəʊ/ → /rw/.
Oh dear. Here it is again with the bits I put between angled brackets, which seem to have been zapped.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the SID plug, Petr.
Another source of pre-consonantal /r/ is words ending in "ious" the spelling. For example, /sɪəriəs/ → /sɪərjəs/.
As a rider to Alex's point, it has occurred to me that /r/ miɡht also appear before /w/. Take for example words like "borrower" and "harrowing": /rəʊ/ → /rw/.
Numerous examples of preconsonantal /r/ in General British can be found in Jack Windsor Lewis's main section of his website at http://www.yek.me.uk/preconsr.html.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for the kind recognition of my efforts in respect of this subject but I think your readers may get thru more certainly to my article Pre-Consonantal /r/ in General British Pronunciation which is item 4 of section 3 of my Homepage if they simply go to
ReplyDeletehttp://www.yek.me.uk
and wind to it there.
Many thanks for your attempt at making winding to your relevant article easier, but I think the winding process is even easier if readers simply copy and paste the URL into their browser. The latter will take them there without further ado.
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