R

Rhotic and non-rhotic accents:R-dropping, Linking-R, Intrusive-R

Can you define the following terms?

Accent

Letter ↔ Sound (change /tʃeɪndʒ/)

Vowel ↔ Consonant

Syllable

Pre-vocalic ↔ Pre-consonantal

R-pronunciation

Accents of English which pronounce the /r/ in all positions, e. g. General American (GA), are

called rhotic accents.

Accents which regularly drop the /r/ in certain positions, e. g. RP, are non-rhotic accents.

Rhotic and non-rhotic accents of English

- non-rhotic accents (such as RP) only pronounce the sound [r] in pre-vocalic position=> car park: [r] sounds are not pronounced=> fairy: [r] is pronounced because of the word final [i] sound

- rhotic accents (such as GA) pronounce the [r] sound everywhere=> parking lot

A pronunciation difference

more

RP /mɔː/ vs. GA /mɔːr/

More and more...

Observe the italicised part of the following sentence:

This lesson is getting more and more funny.

Is there a pronunciation difference between more(1) and more(2)?

What could be the reason?

Linking-R

This lesson is getting more and more funny.more(1): mɔːr more(2): mɔː

=> in RP the sound [r] is only pronounced when a word beginning with a vowel closely follows

Linking-R

Which [r] sounds are pronounced from the following sentence? Why?

President Carter delivered a tiring lecture.

Linking-R

Which [r] sounds are pronounced from the following sentence? Why?

President Carter delivered a tiring lecture.

They saw us running...

Read out the following sentence and observe the pronunciation of the bold words:

They saw us running with the stolen goods in our hands.

They saw us running...

Read out the following sentence and observe the pronunciation of the bold words:

They saw us running with the stolen goods in our hands.

Can you sense an intruder?

Intrusive-RIn RP, words ending in a schwa /-ə/; /ɑː/ or /ɔː/,

when followed by a word beginning with a vowel, may get a linking /r/ even if there is none in the

spelling.This phenomena is optional and must be indicated in transcription by an r in round

brackets.

saw us /sɔː(r) əs/ law and order /lɔː(r)/a spa in France /spɑː(r)/

Intrusive-R

Where can an Intrusive-R appear? Why?

vanilla ice – stay indoors

Intrusive-R

Where can an Intrusive-R appear? Why?

vanilla(r) ice – stay indoors

...and DO the homework

Sources

SLIDES- Balogné Bérces Katalin: Beginner`s English Dialectology: An Introduction to the Accents and Dialects of English. Ad Librum,

Budapest, 2008.

- Nádasdy Ádám: Practice Book in English Phonetics and Phonology. Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest, 2003.

HOMEWORK HANDOUT- Nádasdy (2003: pp. 32-33)