Comments on: Intrusive r

By: Graham

Graham — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:12:08 +0000

Paul – Your first two differences are quite right, but I don’t feel that I make any distinction in lip position between the two words. If you “have to” find three ways in which they are different, I imagine this must be for an assignment. Please let us all know the “correct” answer when you get it!

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:37:58 +0000

awsome thanks! I was confused because I thought the final /a:/ sound was actually an /ǝ/. But I guess you are right.

If you wanna help me with another problem I would appreciate it (even though it has nothing to do with the intrusive ‘r’). I’m not a native English speaker so pronunciation sometimes gives me a hard time.
The problem is that I have to find three ways in which the pronunciation of the word cease differs from sees. My suggestions are:

1.The final “s” in sees [si:z] is a voiced /z/ sound, whereas the “s” is voiceless in cease [si:s].
2.The duration of the vowel /i/ is slightly longer in sees than in cease.
3.The lip position of the /i/ vowel is slightly more spread in sees than it is in cease.

If anyone would like to comment on them please fell free to do so.

By: Graham

Graham — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:49:16 +0000

How about “Panama and Mexico”: /ˈpænəmɑːrəm ˈmeksɪkəʊ/?

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:35:19 +0000

Hey guys,
can anyone give me an example of an intrusive ‘r’ after the /a:/ sound?

By: John Maidment

John Maidment — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:05:39 +0000

Jack,

A very sensible policy which I shall adopt.

By: Jack Windsor Lewis

Jack Windsor Lewis — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:56:02 +0000

John M,
Rhotic and non-rhotic are terms I never use coz they seem too sweeping etc. I prefer to describe accents as high-rhoticity and low-rhoticity. The lowest-rhoticity accent of English is deep-south US. As to pre-consonantal /r/s in the General British accent, I gave numerous examples in my article#4 at Section 3 of my website (www.yek.me.uk).

By: John Maidment

John Maidment — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:47:49 +0000

Actually, /r/ can occur pre-consonantally in “non-rhotic” accents. You cannot be /sɪərjəs/! Oh yes I am.

Oh and by the way, isn’t “ferrule” a nice word?

By: Petr Roesel

Petr Roesel — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:44:13 +0000

@Amy Stoller:
Do you happen to have any (written or spoken) evidence of stigmatisation of intrusive /r/ in American English?

@John Cowan:
Would you call Martin Luther King a member of the AAVE group?

By: Jack Windsor Lewis

Jack Windsor Lewis — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:24:15 +0000

If anyone wants to go into the history etc of this topic they might like to look at http://www.yek.me,uk where the sixth article in Section 3 is “Linking /r/ in the General British pronunciation of English” which has quite a lot on the phenomenon in the twentieth century. A very recent study of the topic in the speech of television British newsreaders was part of a 2006 thesis by Dr Bente R. Hannisdal available for download as a pdf.

By: dw

dw — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:05:19 +0000

In certain cases of intrusive R such as “Asia(r) and Africa” there is a need for _some_ articulatory gesture to mark the word boundary between the schwas of “Asia” and “and”. If intrusive R is not used, this could be a glottal stop, an increase in intensity, a small change in tongue position, etc.

However, in a case such as “draw(r)ing” or “law(r) and order” there is no such need. A pronunciation of /’drɔ:.ɪŋ/ is completely possible from a euphonic point of view. This makes me very interested in AmyStoller’s claim that intrusive R in such words is more recent, at least in RP, than that between schwas.