Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"

Ray Brown wrote:
>
> Do those speakers who have [r\`] in syllable coda, use the same
> approximant in onset position? In other words, do Merkans generally
> pronounce /r/ in |car| the same as the /r/ in |rack|?
Well, IMD, they're certainly felt to be the same phoneme. But the mouth
position for the /r/ in "rack" feels more tense than for the /r/ in
"car". I suspect the former is [r\] (of the "bunched" variety, as my
tongue tip does not seem to curl back), while the latter is a glide to
rhotacization of the preceding vowel (in this case, [kaa`_^]). However,
in "roar" the articulation seems to be the same for both, so the initial
[r\] may cause the final /r/ to be realized as [r\] due to some sort of
sub-phonemic assimilation.