USAGE: intrusive "r" [was Re: (Offlist) Re: ASCII IPA]

Quoting bnathyuw <bnathyuw@...>:

>  --- Javier BF <uaxuctum@...> wrote:
> >
> > That's the rule for non-rhotic dialects, at least
> > British, when a previous r sound existed and was
> > dropped. The r is preserved when in liaison, in the
> > same way French preserves "muted" final consonants
> > in such cases. Evidently, this is not the case with
> > "idea" and "Cuba", which, as you say, are
> > simply hypercorrections.
> >
> > As one who grew up with rhotic speech, I can tell
> > you that such pronunciations were considered utterly
> > ignorant by our teachers.
[snip]

> not at all. pedants make fun of them, but
> pronunciation without intrusive 'r's can sound rather
> stilted
>
> the classic example is /,lO:.r@n.'O:.d@/ for |law and
> order|, but you can pronounce that /lO:@n.'O:.d@/
Presumably, you mean to use phonetic transcription, not
phonemic, since epenthetic segments are usually not said
to exist at the underlying level. (</nitpick>)

For some reason, in America I associate this phenomenon
exclusively with New England.  Perhaps I've watched too
much public television -- Norm Abram, originally on _This
Old House_ and now doing his own public television show
_The New Yankee Workshop_, has a very distinct intrusive
"r".  I don't think I've ever heard of Southern dialects
with intrusive "r". I'd be curious to know if anybody's
ever heard any.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier
Dept. of Linguistics  "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu
University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua
1010 E. 59th Street   eundum est, sed qua itur." -- Seneca
Chicago, IL 60637

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