Rhoticity

｢兒化｣是國語音系中的重要詞形音變，在音位與音節結構之建立中扮演重要的角色。本文採取動態的歷時性觀點加以描繪，試圖以普世音變規律捕捉北京世代間的兒化差異，並在北京近、遠郊的河北方言中探索兒化的過去與未來。
　　對於北京近郊的保定、滿城、定興、定州、清苑、易縣、高碑店等縣市，本文分析兒尾與兒化的分布規律，發現兒化過程嚴格遵守前尾韻 (–i, –n) ＞ 開尾韻 ＞ 後尾韻 (–ŋ, –u) 的演變順序，開尾韻類並且是由中、低元音擴散至高元音。此順序可藉由元、輔音共享特徵的緊縮點式特徵幾何樹 (constriction-based feature geometry) 巧妙捕捉，並藉由｢避同原理｣ (Obligatory Contour Principle) 說明由兒尾轉兒化的變化機制。在北京近、遠郊的廊坊、密雲、遵化、昌黎、滄州、衡水、臨西、魏縣、邯鄲、清東陵、石家莊、承德市等地，我們則發現兒化後元音的歸併，可藉由一步到位的特徵脫落解釋其分布。

This paper examines individual differences in constraints on linguistic variation in light of Labov's (2007) proposal that adult change (diffusion) disrupts systems of constraints and Tamminga, MacKenzie, and Embick's (2016) typology of constraints. It is shown that, in pooling data from multiple speakers, some of the complexity in structured community variation may be overlooked. Data on rhoticity from speakers of Bristol English are compared to 34 previous studies of rhoticity in varieties of English around the world. Constraints found to be consistent across varieties are also found to be consistent across speakers of Bristol English, whereas those that differ between varieties also differ between individuals, implying that only those which differ are truly part of the grammar, and that these are indeed disrupted by diffusion.

In sociolinguistic perception studies, accents from the West County are known
to be one of the few accent groups in England that are rhotic (Beal, 2006: 41;
Trudgill, 2004: 41) but from the various studies that have been done on accent
and dialect studies in the UK, it is clear that rhotic /r/ is also a feature that is
largely declining in the West Country (Sullivan, 1992; Asprey, 2007; Piercy,
2007).
However, in spite of the fact that rhoticity is receding in these accents, can we
establish that rhoticity is an accent feature that constitutes 'intergroup salience'
(Watt et al, 2010: 272) for 'Local' judges from Devon and for 'Regional' judges
from other areas of the UK?
This dissertation investigates these Local and Regional perceptions of rhotic
and non-rhotic guises of West Devon British accents and examines whether
this stimuli leads to Local and Regional judges to examine this stimuli
differently, where we would expect Local judges to perceive rhotic stimuli
equal to non-rhotic stimuli as equal on scales of prestige and higher on scales
of social attractiveness, whereas Regional judges should perceive non-rhotic
stimuli higher than the rhotic stimuli on these scales.
To examine this hypothesis, recordings from female speakers in West Devon
were collected to produce the rhotic and non-rhotic 'guises'. Twenty
participants from Devon (group 1, 'Local') and twenty from any area of Britain, excepting areas that are currently rhotic (group 2, 'Regional') were recruited to
evaluate these speakers using Likert Scales (Johnson, 2013: 289) of personality
traits such as confidence and intelligence.
Chi-square tests of independence were used to analyse the evaluations, with
the results showing no significant results from the Local judges, but that the
non-rhotic guises may be salient for Regional females, as this group
consistently perceives non-rhotic guises higher for intelligibility than Regional
males, while Regional northerners are more likely to perceive stimuli higher
for confidence and trustworthiness if the rhotic guises are included in the
analysis.
However, the results also show that the females were more likely to score both
the non-rhotic and the rhotic guises higher than the male group, while the
northern group seemed to be as unsure of how to evaluate the rhotic guises as
were the southern group.
Ultimately we see that further research with a larger sample is therefore
required in order for us to fully establish the position of rhoticity as a salient
accent feature for both Local and Regional participants.

This paper examines individual differences in constraints on linguistic variation in light of Labov's (2007) proposal that adult change (diffusion) disrupts systems of constraints and Tamminga, MacKenzie, and Embick's (2016) typology of constraints. It is shown that, in pooling data from multiple speakers, some of the complexity in structured community variation may be overlooked. Data on rhoticity from speakers of Bristol English are compared to 34 previous studies of rhoticity in varieties of English around the world. Constraints found to be consistent across varieties are also found to be consistent across speakers of Bristol English, whereas those that differ between varieties also differ between individuals, implying that only those which differ are truly part of the grammar, and that these are indeed disrupted by diffusion.

Australian English (AusE) and New Zealand English (NZE) are two originally “transported” Englishes in the Southern hemisphere. Although there is currently no doubt among the scientific community that they constitute two distinct dialects of English with their own lexical, morphosyntactic, phonological and phonetic features, their description and representation have long been frozen into a unique “Australasian” dialect, in spite of an enormous amount of endocentric linguistic descriptions emerging in the second half of the twentieth century. AusE and NZE being amongst the latest varieties to have emerged in the English-speaking world, they have only recently been extensively studied and considered as valid research objects by the scientific community. In this article we first consider some historical arguments that eventually led to a misleading descriptive hotchpotch of AusE and NZE. This situation scarcely left any room for the possibility of specific phonological and/or phonetic variation within each variety, let alone the description of AusE and NZE as two separate linguistic entities in Australasia. After reconsidering a few parallel historical facts, common critical denunciations and lay theories on the origins of the two Austral varieties, the article focuses on the representation of AusE and NZE in the literature on the phonology of English accents around the world. With a view to contribute to the definition of AusE and NZE as linguistic objects in motion and to promote a dynamic portrait of each variety, we then provide contemporary oral data from the PAC programme as well as comparative analyses in favour of two major arguments for distinctiveness between AusE and NZE: rhoticity in NZE as well as the short front vowel shift in both AusE and NZE.

With few productive morphophonemic processes to draw upon, the study of synchronic Mandarin phonology has often had to rely on the distribution of segments, or in rare instances, look to its one true morphophonemic process-diminutive er-suffixation-for supporting evidence (Hashimoto 1970; Fu 1981; Wang 1985; Wang 1993; Wu 1994). In this paper, we treat diminutive suffixation not as a static state, but instead posit successive stages in the fusion of the er ending with its root syllable by looking to variant behavior in dialects in and around Beijing, which, on the one hand, elucidates the nature of this morphophonemic process, and on the other hand, sheds light on the structure of the Mandarin syllable and the distinctive features of its vowels and consonants. Dialect data will show that the diminutive er-suffix attaches to root morphemes following a strict order: syllables with front codas > syllables with no codas > syllables with back codas. Furthermore, in syllables where the coda position is underlyingly empty (middle category in above sequence), mid and low vowels appear to be more receptive to er-fusion than high vowels. After fusion of er with its root syllable, suffixed forms then undergo a series of mergers: merger between vowels of similar quality, and merger of nasal and non-nasal vowels. We propose to account for the aforementioned changes using a constriction-based feature geometry, whereby preferences for syllable type and vowel height are explained using the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP); the post-fusion mergers of vowels, on the other hand, can be viewed simply as the shedding of features, resulting in unmarked vowels that are underspecified for PLACE and aperture.

Scottish English is typically described as a rhotic variety, whose rhotic variants are taps [ɾ] and approximants [ɹ] (Wells, 1982 : 411). Non-prevocalically, recent findings indicate not only that /r/ is extremely variable, but also that a process of derhoticisation might be ongoing in this accent, leading to r-loss or vocalisation in coda position (Romaine, 1978 ; Stuart-Smith, 2007 ; Stuart-Smith et al., 2007 ; Lawson et al., 2008 ; Llamas, 2010 ; Pukli &  auriberry, 2011). The acoustic analysis of eight native speakers of Ayrshire reveals first, great variability in the realisation of /r/, in relation to internal and external factors, and second, that,  ccording to the apparent time principle, two sound changes might be ongoing and led by young women: the lenition of taps [ɾ] towards approximants [ɹ], and the vocalisation or even loss of non-prevocalic /r/.

Previous accounts on Brunei English have all revealed that speakers of this variety show tendency to rhotacise instances of postvocalic-r, leading to the general conclusion that Brunei English (BrunE) is rhotic, at least insofar as comparison to the neighbouring English varieties of Singapore and Malaysia is concerned. One of the cited reasons for the prevalence of rhoticity in the English of the Bruneians is the transfer effect from the subjects' first language (L1), the rhotic Brunei Malay. This paper aims to further assess this claim by looking at a segment of the Brunei population known to speak a non-rhotic Malay dialect-the Kedayans. Read speech samples from 10 Kedayan speakers comprising two different age groups were analysed, the results of which were then compared to the subjects' responses in a survey on their lingua-identity percepts. The findings reveal a variety of English that is non-rhotic, and what appears to be an age-grading effect with regard to r-vocalisation. Whereas there are almost zero instances of rhoticity in the speech of the older speakers, the younger speakers, who also have lesser affiliations with the Kedayan dialect, show variability in their r-realisations. In addition to challenging the view that rhoticity is an effect of spelling pronunciation, this paper concludes that rhoticity in BrunE can be explained as an effect of contact from the L1, and that it appears to be an age-associated pattern that manifests with decreasing age.

Previous accounts on Brunei English have all revealed that speakers of this variety show tendency to rhotacise instances of postvocalic-r, leading to the general conclusion that Brunei English (BrunE) is rhotic, at least insofar as comparison to the neighbouring English varieties of Singapore and Malaysia is concerned. One of the cited reasons for the prevalence of rhoticity in the English of the Bruneians is the transfer effect from the subjects' first language (L1), the rhotic Brunei Malay. This paper aims to further assess this claim by looking at a segment of the Brunei population known to speak a non-rhotic Malay dialect – the Kedayans. Read speech samples from 10 Kedayan speakers comprising two different age groups were analysed, the results of which were then compared to the subjects' responses in a survey on their lingua-identity percepts. The findings reveal a variety of English that is non-rhotic, and what appears to be an age-grading effect with regard to r-vocalisation. Whereas there are almost zero instances of rhoticity in the speech of the older speakers, the younger speakers, who also have lesser affiliations with the Kedayan dialect, show variability in their r-realisations. In addition to challenging the view that rhoticity is an effect of spelling pronunciation, this paper concludes that rhoticity in BrunE can be explained as an effect of contact from the L1, and that it appears to be an age-associated pattern that manifests with decreasing age.

This paper presents a small-scale acoustic investigation into postvocalic /r/ in both middle class and working class varieties of the Glaswegian accent. Tokens of /CVC/ and /CVrC/ minimal pairs (e.g. 'hut/hurt', 'bead/beard') were elicited from two middle class and two working class speakers, and the formant frequencies throughout the V(r) portion were analysed. The results show significant differences in the formant patterns across both varieties and across vowel environments, for minimal pairs such as 'bead/beard' and 'hut/hurt'. The middle class minimal pairs are acoustically distinct throughout the V(r) portion; the working class 'hut' and 'hurt' pairs differ only at the end, and only in F2, potentially causing misperception for listeners. These results support previous work on /r/ in working class speech in Glasgow. The results also support previous work on the characteristics of higher formants in bunched-tongue configurations of /r/.

The cross-linguistic tendency of coda consonants to weaken, vocalize, or be deleted is shown to have a phonetic basis, resulting from gesture reduction, or variation in gesture timing. This study investigates the effects of the timing of the anterior tongue gesture for coda /r/ on acoustics and perceived strength of rhoticity, making use of two sociolects of Central Scotland (working- and middle-class) where coda /r/ is weakening and strengthening, respectively. Previous articulatory analysis revealed a strong tendency for these sociolects to use different coda /r/ tongue configurations— working- and middle-class speakers tend to use tip/front raised and bunched variants, respectively; however, this finding does not explain working-class /r/ weakening. A correlational analysis in the current study showed a robust relationship between anterior lingual gesture timing, F3, and percept of rhoticity. A linear mixed effects regression analysis showed that both speaker social class and lin...

This paper examines individual differences in constraints on linguistic variation in light of Labov's (2007) proposal that adult change (diffusion) disrupts systems of constraints and Tamminga, MacKenzie, and Embick's (2016) typology of constraints. It is shown that, in pooling data from multiple speakers, some of the complexity in structured community variation may be overlooked. Data on rhoticity from speakers of Bristol English are compared to 34 previous studies of rhoticity in varieties of English around the world. Constraints found to be consistent across varieties are also found to be consistent across speakers of Bristol English, whereas those that differ between varieties also differ between individuals, implying that only those which differ are truly part of the grammar, and that these are indeed disrupted by diffusion.

Previous accounts on Brunei English have all revealed that speakers of this variety show tendency to rhotacise instances of postvocalic-r, leading to the general conclusion that Brunei English (BrunE) is rhotic, at least insofar as comparison to the neighbouring English varieties of Singapore and Malaysia is concerned. One of the cited reasons for the prevalence of rhoticity in the English of the Bruneians is the transfer effect from the subjects' first language (L1), the rhotic Brunei Malay. This paper aims to further assess this claim by looking at a segment of the Brunei population known to speak a non-rhotic Malay dialect – the Kedayans. Read speech samples from 10 Kedayan speakers comprising two different age groups were analysed, the results of which were then compared to the subjects' responses in a survey on their lingua-identity percepts. The findings reveal a variety of English that is non-rhotic, and what appears to be an age-grading effect with regard to r-vocali...

Previous accounts on Brunei English have all revealed that speakers of this variety show tendency to rhotacise instances of postvocalic-r, leading to the general conclusion that Brunei English (BrunE) is rhotic, at least insofar as comparison to the neighbouring English varieties of Singapore and Malaysia is concerned. One of the cited reasons for the prevalence of rhoticity in the English of the Bruneians is the transfer effect from the subjects’ first language (L1), the rhotic Brunei Malay. This paper aims to further assess this claim by looking at a segment of the Brunei population known to speak a non-rhotic Malay dialect – the Kedayans. Read speech samples from 10 Kedayan speakers comprising two different age groups were analysed, the results of which were then compared to the subjects’ responses in a survey on their lingua-identity percepts. The findings reveal a variety of English that is non-rhotic, and what appears to be an age-grading effect with regard to r-vocalisation. ...