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[a] When an r is at the end of a word but the next word begins with a vowel, as in the phrase "better apples," most non-rhotic speakers will preserve the /r/ in that position (the linking R), because it is followed by a vowel. [5] The rhotic dialects of English include most of those in Scotland, Ireland, the United States, and Canada.
An r-colored or rhotic vowel (also called a retroflex vowel, vocalic r, or a rhotacized vowel) is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant. [1] R-colored vowels can be articulated in various ways: the tip or blade of the tongue may be turned up during at least part of the articulation of the ...
In phonetics and phonology, a postvocalic consonant is a consonant that occurs after a vowel. [1]: 133 Examples include the n in stand or the n in sun.Contrarily, if a consonant occurs between two vowels, it is called intervocalic.
After /ə/, /r/ may be dropped altogether, as in kilometer [ˈkilömeitə] 'kilometer'. This is commonly heard in The Hague. It is not necessarily restricted to the word-final position, as it can also happen in word-final clusters in words such as honderd [ˈɦɔndət] 'hundred'. [11]
The following table shows the 24 consonant phonemes found in most dialects of English, plus /x/, whose distribution is more limited. Fortis consonants are always voiceless, aspirated in syllable onset (except in clusters beginning with /s/ or /ʃ/), and sometimes also glottalized to an extent in syllable coda (most likely to occur with /t/, see T-glottalization), while lenis consonants are ...
R-labialization, which should not be confused with the rounding of initial /r/ described above, is a process occurring in certain dialects of English, particularly some varieties of Cockney, in which the /r/ phoneme is realized as a labiodental approximant [ʋ], in contrast to an alveolar approximant [ɹ].
The other main theory is that the uvular R originated within Germanic languages by the weakening of the alveolar R, which was replaced by an imitation of the alveolar R (vocalisation). [4] Against the "French origin" theory, it is said that there are many signs that the uvular R existed in some German dialects long before the 17th century.
Words such as beard are then pronounced as /bjɜrd/. [63] Usual word pairs like beer and burr are still distinguished as /bjɜr/ and /bɜr/. However, /j/ is dropped after a consonant cluster (as in queer) or a palato-alveolar consonant (as in cheer), likely because of phonotactic constraints, which then results in a merger with nurse: /kwɜr ...