PHONETICS MANUAL.indd - HumBox

To resume the complexities of r:
English, Spanish and southern German use dental or alveolar r’s of one sort or
another (the IPA symbols are always variants on lower-case r). Northern German
and standard French use various kinds of uvular r (the IPA symbols are variants on
upper-case R).
English (RP) has the approximant, but doesn’t normally use trills or flaps. German
uses voiced or voiceless fricatives (sometimes approximants) and Spanish has trills
and flaps, but no approximant. In standard French trills (occasionally), fricatives and
approximants occur. In northern German and in RP there is no “post-vocalic” r: in
German this becomes a vowel, in RP it disappears altogether.
Exercises
86. What does the term liquid refer to?
87. State the various places and manners of articulation associated with r .
88. Say whether the English accents typical of the following places are “rhotic” or
“non-rhotic”:
Edinburgh, Cardiff, Dublin, Manchester, Preston, Bristol, Southampton,
Brighton, Sydney, Chicago, Basildon.
89. The r in RP “take the car away” is known as a “linking r”. The following contain
examples of so-called “intrusive r “. Why “intrusive”?
Russia [r] and China, India [r] and Pakistan, drama [r] and music, law [r]
and order.
And what makes some people insert an [r] into drawing, sawing and awe-inspiring?
90. Can you transcribe and/or comment on the rather “posh” or “stagey” variety of
r heard from some RP speakers in words like very ? And how might the same
speakers pronounce the r of rather ?
91. Rewrite in ordinary (English) spelling:
92. Transcribe:
[rˆt] [rut] [ri@] [rO:] [f@:rI] [hˆrI] [i@rI] [dE:rI] [daI@rI] [mIr@]
royal, rude, rag, arrow, fury, dowry, gregarious, treasury, umbrella,
birthright.
62 Consonants