Rhotic and non-rhotic accents

Examples of intrusive R

"I saw(r) a film today, oh boy" (The Beatles, "A Day in the Life")

"His face is a sad sight, vodka(r) and snake bite. (The Streets, "The Irony Of It All")

"The law(r) is the law!" (Nigel Terry as King Arthur in the 1981 film Excalibur)

"Brenda(r) and Eddie" (Billy Joel, "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant")

"When Joanna(r) is here" (McFly, "Little Joanna"}

"Vodka(r) and tonics" (Elton John, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road")

"The idea(r) of perfection holds me" (The Cure, "Faith")

"In a champagne supernova(r) in the sky" (Oasis, "Champagne Supernova")

"Casanova(r) in Hell" (Pet Shop Boys, "Casanova in Hell")

"There's an orchestra(r) in May (The Servant, "Orchestra")

"I wanna(r) I wanna(r) I wanna be adored" (The Stone Roses, "I Wanna Be Adored")

"Brimful of Asha(r) on the 45" and "Illuminate the main streets and the cinema(r) aisles" (Cornershop, "Brimful of Asha")

"It's Santana(r) again, steppin', steppin' out." Rapper Juelz Santana in singer Chris Brown's 2006 single, Run It.

"Look, mama(r), I love you" (Howard Jones, "Look Mama")

"She's coming up from Florida(r), isn't she?" (Michael Caine in the movie Dressed To Kill)

"To push too far your dreams are, china(r) in your hand" (T'Pau China in your hand)

Rhotic and non-rhotic accents

English pronunciation is divided into two main accent groups, the rhotic (pronounced /ˈroʊtɪk/) and non-rhotic, depending on when the sound typically represented in spelling with the letter R is pronounced. Rhotic speakers pronounce written /r/ in all positions, while non-rhotic speakers pronounce /r/ only if it is followed by a vowel sound (see "linking and intrusive R"), and not always even then. In linguistic terms, non-rhotic accents are said to exclude the phoneme /r/ from the syllable coda. This is commonly referred to as the post-vocalic R, although that term can be misleading because not all Rs that occur after vowels are excluded in non-rhotic English.Contents [hide]

1 Development of non-rhotic accents

2 Distribution of rhotic and non-rhotic accents

3 Similar phenomena in other languages

4 Effect on spelling

5 See also

6 References

7 Bibliography

8 External links

[edit]

Development of non-rhotic accents

On this map of England, the red areas are where the rural accents were rhotic as of the 1950s. Based on H. Orton et al., Survey of English dialects (1962–71). Note that some areas with partial rhoticity (for example parts of the East Riding of Yorkshire) are not shaded on this map.

Red areas are where English dialects of the late 20th century were rhotic. Based on P. Trudgill, The Dialects of England.

The earliest traces of a loss of /r/ in English are found in the environment before /s/ in spellings from the mid-15th century: the Oxford English Dictionary reports bace for earlier barse (today "bass", the fish) in 1440 and passel for parcel in 1468. In the 1630s, the word juggernaut is first attested, which represents the Sanskrit word jagannāth, meaning "lord of the universe". The English spelling uses the digraph er to represent a Hindi sound close to the English schwa. Loss of coda /r/ apparently became widespread in southern England during the 18th century; John Walker uses the spelling ar to indicate the broad A of aunt in his 1775 dictionary and reports that card is pronounced "caad" in 1791 (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006: 47).

Non-rhotic speakers pronounce an [ɹ] in red, and most pronounce it in torrid and watery (in each case the [ɹ] is followed by a vowel) but not in hard, nor car or water. However, in most non-rhotic accents, if a word ending in written "r" is followed closely by another word beginning with a vowel, the [ɹ] is pronounced—as in water ice. This phenomenon is referred to as "linking R". Many non-rhotic speakers also insert epenthetic [ɹ]s between vowels when the first vowel is one that can occur before syllable-final r (drawring for drawing). This so-called "intrusive R" is frowned upon by those who use the non-rhotic Received Pronunciation but even they frequently "intrude" an epenthetic [ɹ] at word boundaries, especially where one or both vowels is schwa; for example the idea of it becomes the idea-r-of it, Australia and New Zealand becomes Australia-r-and New Zealand. The typical alternative used by RP speakers is to insert a glottal stop where an intrusive R would otherwise be placed.

For non-rhotic speakers, what was historically a vowel plus [ɹ] is now usually realized as a long vowel. So car, hard, fur, born are phonetically /kɑː/, /hɑːd/, /fɜː/, /bɔːn/. This length is retained in phrases, so car owner is /kɑːɹəʊnə/. But a final schwa remains short, so water is /wɔːtə/. The vowels /iː/ and /uː/ (or /ʊ/), when followed by r, become diphthongs ending in schwa, so near is /nɪə/ and poor is /pʊə/. The same happens to diphthongs followed by R (or they end in /ɚ/ in rhotic speech and that sound turns into a schwa as usual in non-rhotic speech): tire is /taɪə/ and sour is /saʊə/ (New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary). For some speakers some long vowels alternate with a diphthong ending in schwa, so wear is /wɛə/ but wearing is /wɛːɹiŋ/. Some pairs of words with distinct pronunciations in rhotic accents are homophones in many non-rhotic accents. Examples in Received Pronunciation include father and farther; draws and drawers; formally and formerly; area and airier. In Australian English, which has the weak vowel merger, pairs like batted/battered or boxes/boxers are homophones. Syllabication interacts with rhoticity: rhotic sheer and Shi'a respectively have one and two syllables; in some non-rhotic speech, this may be insufficient for distinguishing them.

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