A history of hyper-rhoticity in English  

Oleh:

Britton, Derek

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: English Language and Linguistics (Full Text & ada di PROQUEST th. 2005 - terbaru) vol. 11 no. 3 (Nov. 2007), page 525-536.
Fulltext: vol11.3;525-536.pdf (90.76KB)

Isi artikel

This article investigates the history of what Wells (1982), in his account of present-day accents of English, calls ‘hyper-rhoticity’. That is, the appearance, in rhotic accents, of epenthetic, unetymological rhyme-/r/, usually taking the form of /r/-colouring in modern accents. It is attested most commonly in final unstressed syllables, but may also occur in syllable rhymes after a long, stressed vowel. The article traces the history of this phenomenon and attempts to show that Early Modern English data which have hitherto been interpreted as evidence for loss of /r/ in such contexts are better attributed to hyperrhoticity. It is also argued here, in an addendum, that not to accept claims for early /r/-loss in unstressed syllables has wider implications for the history of English phonology. That is, to reject theories of loss of /r/ in final unstressed syllables demands rejection of the notion of early articulatory weakening of /r/ in this context, which has been seen as a prelude to the spread of weakening to other contexts, leading ultimately to loss of rhoticity.

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