Part of
Substance-based Grammar – The (Ongoing) Work of John AndersonEdited by Roger Böhm and Harry van der Hulst
[Studies in Language Companion Series 204] 2018
► pp. 339–364
This chapter discusses some theoretical questions relating to rhotics in the languages of the world and particularly in English. I give a phonetic overview of this heterogeneous set of sounds and shows that in spite of a cross-linguistically stable phonological behaviour, specialists have failed to identify a phonetic dimension common to all rhotics. I then offer a treatment of /r/ couched in Dependency Phonology and based on the sonority sequencing principle which seems to be at work in the phonotactic distribution of /r/ in European languages. My proposal is put to the test through a reinterpretation of the historical derhoticization of Southern British English.