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Substance-based Grammar – The (Ongoing) Work of John Anderson
Edited by Roger Böhm and Harry van der Hulst
[Studies in Language Companion Series 204] 2018
► pp. 339–364

Rhotics and the derhoticization of English

A Dependency Phonology analysis

| Université Paris 7 Diderot
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.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.What are rhotics?
  • 3.Do rhotics constitute a natural class?
  • 4.Phonological representation of rhotics
  • 5.Dependency phonology approach
  • 6.Dependency phonology modelling of the derhoticization of English
  • 7.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 December 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.204.08nav
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