/r/-liaison in English: An empirical study

Abstract

This article presents the results of an empirical study on the phenomenon of /r/-liaison (i.e., linking /r/ and intrusive /r/) in non-rhotic English from the perspective of usage-based Cognitive Linguistics. The study looks into sociolinguistic, phonetic and usage-based factors that condition variability in /r/-liaison through the analysis of news archives from the BBC World Service website (years 2004 and 2005). The paper argues that a thorough understanding of the phenomenon of /r/-liaison requires an analysis of the di¤erent aspects that condition its use and the use of empirical methods to study it.

T-to-R and the Northern Subject Rule: questionnaire-based spatial, social and structural linguistics

“…This is the case in other phenomena. In the r -sandhi found in non-rhotic dialects, for example, Jones (1956) claims that r is not typically realised in contexts like roar_ of laughter or Victoria_ and Albert (see Mompeán-Gonzalez & Mompeán-Guillamón 2009) because of the rhotic which is immediately adjacent to the candidate insertion site. Moreover, Hall (2007) claims that the multiple occurrence of an underlying /r/ in a word can lead to the loss of one occurrence on the surface, even in rhotic varieties, so that secretary is realised as [sɛkətɛri], for example.…”

Analogy in the emergence of intrusive-rin English

“…One result that seems to emerge consistently in empirical studies of intrusive-r and other related phenomena is that the incidence of final r in prevocalic position is highly variable in both the r-ful and the r-less classes. Table 3 presents the overall proportion of rhotic realisations in prevocalic position as reported in different studies of the behaviour of r. While these figures mask a great amount of interpersonal and sociolinguistic variation, they clearly demonstrate a high degree of variability within the r-ful and r-less classes (which also exists at the level of individuals, as shown in Mompeán-Gonzalez &Mompeán-Guillamón 2009 andSóskuthy 2009). The results of these studies also reveal a marked difference between the two classes: r-ful words are more likely to be realised with a final r in prevocalic position than r-less words (or, in traditional terms: linking-r is more likely to occur than intrusive-r).…”

“…Jones (1964) and Wells (1982) suggest that intrusive-r might be less likely when there is an r in the onset of the final syllable, as in zebra and draw. However, this claim does not seem to be supported by empirical studies of intrusive-r: none of the studies that investigate the role of tautosyllabic r find any significant effects associated with it (Hay & Sudbury 2005;Mompeán-Gonzalez & Mompeán-Guillamón 2009). The only study that finds a limited amount of support for such an effect is Foulkes (1998), which does indeed report a lower proportion of r-ful realisations in words with a tautosyllabic r. However, even Foulkes himself urges caution over the interpretation of his results given the small number of relevant tokens and the absence of statistical significance.…”

“…Uffmann (2007: 470) presents a slightly different grouping of final vowels: he claims that there exists a class of speakers who only produce intrusive-r after [ə] and [A…], while other speakers intrude after all non-high vowels (based on Wells 1982). Yet another alleged pattern involves higher Foulkes (1998), Sóskuthy (2009) and Mompeán-Gonzalez & Mompeán-Guillamón (2009) find no correlation between the quality of the final vowel and the likelihood of intrusive-r. Table 4 presents a summary of these results. Interestingly, it appears that most of the tendencies reported for intrusiver in studies based on impressionistic observations (Jones 1964;Gimson 1980;Wells 1982;Uffmann 2007) disappear in statistically more reliable quantitative studies of the phenomenon (Foulkes 1998;Mompeán-Gonzalez & Mompeán-Guillamón 2009;Sóskuthy 2009).…”

“…Table 4 presents a summary of these results. Interestingly, it appears that most of the tendencies reported for intrusive- r in studies based on impressionistic observations (Jones 1964; Gimson 1980; Wells 1982; Uffmann 2007) disappear in statistically more reliable quantitative studies of the phenomenon (Foulkes 1998; Mompeán-Gonzalez & Mompeán-Guillamón 2009; Sóskuthy 2009). The only exception is New Zealand English, where statistically more robust patterns have been found (Hay & Warren 2002; Hay & Sudbury 2005).…”