Rhotic consonant

In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including R, r in the Latin script and Р, p in the Cyrillic script. They are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by upper- or lower-case variants of Roman R, r:[1] r, ɾ, ɹ, ɻ, ʀ, ʁ, ɽ, and ɺ.

This class of sounds is difficult to characterise phonetically; from a phonetic standpoint, there is no single articulatory correlate common to rhotic consonants.[2] Rhotics have instead been found to carry out similar phonological functions or to have certain similar phonological features across different languages.[3] Although some have been found to share certain acoustic peculiarities, such as a lowered third formant, further study has revealed that this does not hold true across different languages. For example, the acoustic quality of lowered third formants pertains almost exclusively to American varieties of English. Being "R-like" is an elusive and ambiguous concept phonetically and the same sounds that function as rhotics in some systems may pattern with fricatives, semivowels or even stops in others—for example, "tt" in American English "better" is often pronounced as an alveolar tap, a rhotic consonant in many other languages.[2]

Types

The most typical rhotic sounds found in the world's languages are the following:[1]

Characteristics

In broad transcription rhotics are usually symbolised as /r/ unless there are two or more types of rhotic in the same language; for example, most Australian Aboriginal languages, which contrast approximant [ɻ] and trill [r], use the symbols r and rr respectively. The IPA has a full set of different symbols which can be used whenever more phonetic precision is required: an r rotated 180° [ɹ] for the alveolar approximant, a small capital R [ʀ] for the uvular trill, and a flipped small capital R [ʁ] for the voiced uvular fricative or approximant.

The fact that the sounds conventionally classified as "rhotics" vary greatly in both place and manner in terms of articulation, and also in their acoustic characteristics, has led several linguists to investigate what, if anything, they have in common that justifies grouping them together. One suggestion that has been made is that each member of the class of rhotics shares certain properties with other members of the class, but not necessarily the same properties with all; in this case, rhotics have a "family resemblance" with each other rather than a strict set of shared properties.[2] Another suggestion is that rhotics are defined by their behaviour on the sonority hierarchy, namely, that a rhotic is any sound that patterns as being more sonorous than a lateral consonant but less sonorous than a vowel.[3] The potential for variation within the class of rhotics makes them a popular area for research in sociolinguistics.[6]

Variable rhoticity

English has rhotic and non-rhotic accents. Rhotic speakers pronounce a historical /r/ in all instances, while non-rhotic speakers only pronounce /r/ before or between vowels. A number of other languages have variable rhotic consonants.

Other Germanic languages

The rhotic consonant is dropped or vocalized under similar conditions in other Germanic languages, notably German, Danish and Dutch from the eastern Netherlands (because of Low German influence) and southern Sweden (possibly because of its Danish history). In most varieties of German (with the notable exception of Swiss Standard German), /r/ in the syllable coda is frequently realized as a vowel or a semivowel, [ɐ] or [ɐ̯]. In the traditional standard pronunciation, this happens only in the unstressed ending -er and after long vowels: for example besser [ˈbɛsɐ], sehr [zeːɐ̯]. In common speech, the vocalization is usual after short vowels as well, and additional contractions may occur: for example Dorn [dɔɐ̯n] ~ [dɔːn], hart [haɐ̯t] ~ [haːt]. Similarly, Danish /r/ after a vowel is, unless followed by a stressed vowel, either pronounced [ɐ̯] (mor "mother" [moɐ̯], næring "nourishment" [ˈnɛɐ̯eŋ]) or merged with the preceding vowel while usually influencing its vowel quality (/a(ː)r/ and /ɔːr/ or /ɔr/ are realised as long vowels [aː] and [ɒː], and /ər/, /rə/ and /rər/ are all pronounced [ɐ]) (løber "runner" [ˈløːb̥ɐ], Søren Kierkegaard (personal name) [ˌsœːɐn ˈkʰiɐ̯ɡ̊əˌɡ̊ɒːˀ]).

Astur-Leonese

In Asturian, word final /r/ is always lost in infinitives if they are followed by an enclitic pronoun, and this is reflected in the writing; e.g. The infinitive form dar [dar] plus the 3rd plural dative pronoun "-yos" da-yos [daˈʝos̻] (give to them) or the accusative form "los" dalos [daˈlos̻] (give them). This will happen even in southern dialects where the infinitive form will be "dare" [daˈre], and both the /r/ and the vowel will drop (da-yos, not *dáre-yos). However, most of the speakers also drop the rhotics in the infinitive before a lateral consonant of a different word, and this doesn't show in the writing. e.g. dar los dos [daː los̻ ðos̻] (give the two [things]). This doesn't occur in the middle of words. e.g. the name Carlos [karˈlos̻].

Catalan

In some Catalan dialects, word final /r/ is lost in coda position not only in suffixes on nouns and adjectives denoting the masculine singular and plural (written as -r, -rs) but also in the "-ar, -er, -ir" suffixes of infinitives; e.g. forner [furˈne] "(male) baker", forners [furˈnes], fer [ˈfe] "to do", lluir [ʎuˈi] "to shine, to look good". However, rhotics are "recovered" when followed by the feminine suffix -a [ə], and when infinitives have single or multiple enclitic pronouns (notice the two rhotics are neutralized in the coda, with a tap [ɾ] occurring between vowels, and a trill [r] elsewhere); e.g. fornera [furˈneɾə] "(female) baker", fer-lo [ˈferɫu] "to do it (masc.)", fer-ho [ˈfeɾu] "to do it/that/so", lluir-se [ʎuˈir.sə] "to excel, to show off".

Chinese

In Mandarin, many words are pronounced with the coda [ɻ], originally a diminutive ending. The sound [ɻ] did not appear in Mandarin until the 17th century, when a vowel epenthesis (i.e. /ɑ/) was added to [ɽɿ] (approximate pronunciation in early Mandarin in the 14th century). But this happens only in some areas, mainly in the Northern region, notably including Beijing dialect; as vast majority of Chinese varieties (e.g. Cantonese, Min, Wu) had been separated from early Mandarin by the late 13th century, in other areas it tends to be omitted. But in words with an inherent coda, such as the number two (Chinese: ; pinyin: èr), [ɑ̂ɻ], the [ɻ] is pronounced.

French

Final R is generally not pronounced in words ending in -er. The R in parce que (because) is not pronounced in informal speech.

Indonesian and Malaysian Malay

In Indonesian, which is a form of Malay, the final /r/ is pronounced, while it is not in the various forms of Malay spoken on the Malay Peninsula.

Khmer

Historical final /r/ has been lost from all Khmer dialects but Northern.

Portuguese

In some dialects of Brazilian Portuguese, /r/ is unpronounced or aspirated. This occurs most frequently with verbs in the infinitive, which is always indicated by a word-final /r/. In some states, however, it happens mostly with any /r/ when preceding a consonant.

Spanish

Among the Spanish dialects, Andalusian Spanish, Caribbean Spanish (descended from and still closely similar to Andalusian and Canarian Spanish), Castúo (Spanish dialect of Extremadura), Northern Colombian Spanish (in cities like Cartagena, Montería, San Andrés and Santa Marta, but not Barranquilla, which is mostly rhotic) and the Argentine dialect spoken in the Tucumán province have an unpronounced word-final /r/, especially in infinitives, which mirrors the situation in some dialects of Brazilian Portuguese. However, in the Caribbean Antillean forms, word-final /r/ in infinitives and non-infinitives is often in free variation with word-final /l/ and may relax to the point of being articulated as /i/.

Turkish

Among the Turkic languages, Turkish displays more or less the same feature, as syllable-final /r/ is dropped. For example, it is very common to hear phrases like "gidiyo" instead of "gidiyor", in spoken Turkish. In some parts of Turkey, e.g. Kastamonu, the syllable-final /r/ is almost never pronounced, e.g. "gidiya" instead of "gidiyor" (meaning "she/he is going"), "gide" instead of "gider" (meaning "she/he goes"). In "gide", the preceding vowel e is lengthened and pronounced somewhat between an e and a.

Uyghur

Among the Turkic languages, Uyghur displays more or less the same feature, as syllable-final /r/ is dropped, while the preceding vowel is lengthened: for example Uyghurlar [ʔʊɪˈʁʊːlaː]Uyghurs’. The /r/ may, however, sometimes be pronounced in unusually "careful" or "pedantic" speech; in such cases, it is often mistakenly inserted after long vowels even when there is no phonemic /r/ there.

Yaqui

Similarly in Yaqui, an indigenous language of northern Mexico, intervocalic or syllable-final /r/ is often dropped with lengthening of the previous vowel: pariseo becomes [paːˈseo], sewaro becomes [sewajo].

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Ladefoged, Peter; Ian Maddieson (1996). "Rhotics". The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 215–245. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
  2. 1 2 3 Lindau, Mona (1978). "Vowel features". Language 54 (3): 541–63. doi:10.2307/412786. JSTOR 412786.
  3. 1 2 Wiese, Richard (2001). "The phonology of /r/". In T Alan Hall. Distinctive Feature Theory. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-017033-7.
  4. Barbosa & Albano (2004:5–6)
  5. "Portuguese Consonants". Portugueselanguageguide.com.
  6. Scobbie, James (2006). "(R) as a variable". In Roger Brown. Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.). Oxford: Elsevier. pp. 337–344. ISBN 978-0-08-044299-0.
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