Rhoticity free essay sample

A non-rhotic  accent, however, does not have the /r/ in final or pre-consonantal positions (this is sometimes known as the post-vocalic /r/, although others use the more accurate term, the non-prevocalic /r/). What this means is that speakers of non-rhotic  accents have this rule:  if the in the spelling does not occur before a vowel sound, don’t pronounce it. (NOTE:  vowel sound, not  vowel letter. ) Here are examples of words and phrases where the won’t be pronounced by non-rhotic  speakers: †¢ department †¢ party pooper utter  nonsense and balderdash †¢ Mr  Carter, you are so argumentative, aren’t you Turning back to English, we can say that all English accents were  rhotic  up until the early  MnE  period and non-rhoticity  was a relatively late development. (Remember, spelling reflects pronunciation in the early  MnE  period. ) What is particularly interesting about the non-prevocalic /r/ is that before it was lost, it affected the vowel  preceding  it. We will write a custom essay sample on Rhoticity or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page It did three kinds of things: (1) lengthened the preceding vowel sound; Words like  arm,  bark  and  card  originally had a short [a] sound (cf. m, back, cad) (2) changed the quality of the vowel sound; Up until about 1600, the vowel sounds in  fern,  fir  and  fur  were the same as those in  pet,  pit  and  put  respectively (and of course, the /r/ was pronounced). Using the phonetic alphabet, their pronunciations would have been [fErn], [fIr] and [fUr]. All three vowels began to be ‘coloured’ by /r/, and the vowel quality began to coalesce into [@], so that in 1700, the pronunciations would have been [[emailprotected]], [[emailprotected]] and [[emailprotected]]   (3) caused diphthongisation. Diphthongs  followed by R, though these may be considered to end in  /? r/  in rhotic speech, and it is the  /? r/  that reduces to schwa as usual in non-rhotic speech:  tire  said in isolation is  [ta ]  and  sour  is  [sa ]. [2]  For some speakers, some long vowels alternate with a  diphthong  ending in schwa, sowear  may be  [w ]  but  wearing  [w i? ]. Examples of non-rhotic accent speaking areas: †¢ The  Boston dialect  is the  dialect  characteristic of  English  spoken in the city of  Boston  and much of eastern  Massachusetts. The best-known features of the Boston accent are  non-rhoticity  and  broad A. †¢ RP in England. †¢ Malay in  Malaysia  (Bahasa  Melayu,  Bahasa  Malaysia) is non-rhotic 14. rhotic accent a  rhotic  speaker pronounces a  rhotic consonant  in words like  hard; all English accents were  rhotic  up until the early  MnE  period Examples of rhotic accents: †¢ Malay in  Indonesia  (Bahasa  Indonesia). †¢ Scottish English. †¢ Typical American dialects are rhotic.