There are varying degrees of non-rhoticity. A Bostonian 'r' is easily distinguishable from a British 'r', and from a Tidewater South 'r', but they're all called "non-rhotic". Is there a term for various forms of non-rhoticity? The same goes for rhotic pronounciation. For instance, the rhotic 'r' of standard Dutch is much more pronounced than General American 'r'. Dutch 'r' sounds like an exaggerated form of a rhotic 'r' when compared to my Californian 'r'. Do linguists distinguish between the variations, or are they all just compartmentalized together?
Uriel
No idea, but you are quite right that they sound different. One of my coworkers is from Louisiana, and her style sounds almost like a slight speech impediment, since her R's seem to convert to almost a W-sound. It's like she's halfway rhotic and just not doing it properly, but I know that's just her accent.
Deborah
I thought the Dutch R was a trilled or rolled one.
Porthos
Deborah wrote:
I thought the Dutch R was a trilled or rolled one.
It is, but at the end of a word, it is rhotic, and pronounced similar to an American Western or Midwestern 'r'.
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No idea, but you are quite right that they sound different. One of my coworkers is from Louisiana, and her style sounds almost like a slight speech impediment, since her R's seem to convert to almost a W-sound. It's like she's halfway rhotic and just not doing it properly, but I know that's just her accent.
Yeah, but I love that 'r'. I caught a cab the other day, and the driver was an old black dude from Louisiana, and he spoke a mix of AAVE and Cajun it sounded like. The leader singer from Credence Clearwater Revival has that 'r' too. The songs wouldn't sound as good without that 'r'.
Walker
Porthos wrote:
Deborah wrote:
No idea, but you are quite right that they sound different. One of my coworkers is from Louisiana, and her style sounds almost like a slight speech impediment, since her R's seem to convert to almost a W-sound. It's like she's halfway rhotic and just not doing it properly, but I know that's just her accent.
Yeah, but I love that 'r'. I caught a cab the other day, and the driver was an old black dude from Louisiana, and he spoke a mix of AAVE and Cajun it sounded like. The leader singer from Credence Clearwater Revival has that 'r' too. The songs wouldn't sound as good without that 'r'.
This guy's 'r's sound almost like a 'w'. He was born in Puerto Rico and raised in the Bronx. David Zayas.
He sounds pretty funny (and I'm talking about his 'r's here). You blessed ones out there will remember him from Dexter.
I got curious about the word order in the following sentence:
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...and he spoke a mix of AAVE and Cajun it sounded like
It looks a little odd to me. Am I wrong? ...it sounded like he spoke a mix... wouldn't have looked odd. Your word order there looks like something I might've said (in real life) if I was tired and/or insecure or something. I recall an occasion in Dublin when I said "I have two options: either I drink more beer or I go to bed, it feels like". There was a native-speaker of English present (an American chick) and I wondered if I hadn't used incorrect English...
Porthos
Quote:
It looks a little odd to me. Am I wrong? ...it sounded like he spoke a mix... wouldn't have looked odd. Your word order there looks like something I might've said (in real life) if I was tired and/or insecure or something. I recall an occasion in Dublin when I said "I have two options: either I drink more beer or I go to bed, it feels like". There was a native-speaker of English present (an American chick) and I wondered if I hadn't used incorrect English...
Well, I think it's incorrect in proper English, but in colloquial speech, we use that construction all the time. And on a discussion board like this, I tend to write much like I speak. Hiberno-English is famous for that construction, and I think Scottish-English is too.
Deborah
Yeah, it's common in everyday speech.
Uriel
We do a lot of sentence inversions, Walker. I made a recent post that was almost nothing but inverted sentences, and I almost decided to change it because I thought it might confuse the hell out of our non-native speakers. But in the end I left it, because that was my natural wording, and everyone will just have to live with it!
Usually in written form you mark the inverted part with a comma: I caught a cab the other day, and the driver was an old black dude from Louisiana, and he spoke a mix of AAVE and Cajun, it sounded like. That would probably be a help to readers unfamiliar with the form.
