11
votes
Pronunciation of word-initial syllabic R in American English
Starting a word-initial vowel (or syllabic consonant, as the case may be) with a glottal stop is a phenomenon known as hard attack. Geoff Lindsey has an interesting video about this, and his book ...
9
votes
Received Pronunciation and ambiguity (users vs uses)
The noun user is pronounced /ju:zə/ in RP. Notice that unless it is followed by a vowel, there is no /r/ in this word.
The verb use is pronounced /ju:z/.
However, the noun use is pronounced /ju:s/. ...
7
votes
Accepted
Do non-rhotic (British) English speakers often insert a silent "r" when respelling certain words?
It's fairly common in British English to write the /ɑː/ sound as ar in respellings that are intended to indicate the pronunciation of words. You can see in the following discussion thread two other ...
6
votes
Received Pronunciation and ambiguity (users vs uses)
They are not pronounced the same, even in non-rhotic dialects like RP.
The noun use is pronounced with /s/, the verb use is pronounced with /z/:
noun: /jus/, verb: /juz/
When these words are ...
6
votes
Accepted
Pronunciation of “tour”
John Wells, in his interesting and very readable paper Whatever happened to Received Pronunciation? makes the following observations about what is known as the CURE vowel, the diphthong /ʊə/, which a ...
6
votes
Pronunciation of word-initial syllabic R in American English
The initial glottal stop is not a phoneme in American English — you can pronounce earn with or without a glottal stop in front of it, and it will be equally correct, and probably equally well ...
5
votes
Why is Indian English usually rhotic?
First, to get it out of the way, it is not the case that 'Indian English is rhotic'. There is widespread variation - some speakers are and some are not (more details and references later).
But in ...
5
votes
Am I semi-rhotic?
The Original Poster says that they produce /r/ inconsistently after a vowel. Let's look at two words where there is an orthographic R (a written R) after a vowel:
car - /kɑ:/ in non-rhotic English
...
4
votes
Accepted
Why don't people understand me when I speak English with a non-rhotic accent?
It is no wonder that educated Americans would have no difficulty with your "British" accent. Educated Americans are generally exposed to many types of "accents" ; same for educated Brits. Among ...
4
votes
Accepted
Where in Ireland, if anywhere, at the time of James Joyce, would "hoe" and "whore" sound similar enough to pun?
Though the generic Irish-English accent is rhotic (pronounces all 'r's), Supposedly, the accent in Dublin, where Joyce was born and raised, is (or was at that time?) non-rhotic. In that case, 'hoe' /...
4
votes
Accepted
I pronounce initial R's with my upper teeth on the very bottom of my inside lower lip. Not rhotic. What's the IPA for this?
It sounds like you're describing a labiodental approximant [ʋ]. That sound is documented to occur as a pronunciation of /r/ for some English speakers, noted on the Wikipedia article voiced labiodental ...
4
votes
Accepted
What did post-vocalic r sound like in the UK before it died out?
For starters, there are still UK dialects today which are rhotic, especially in the West Country, Scotland, and Northern Island (plus the Republic of Ireland which is not in the UK, but in close ...
4
votes
Accepted
Is there any difference between a syllabic R /ɹ̩/ and r-colored vowel /ɚ/?
TLDR: In terms of phonetic symbols for American English, no. These represent the exact same phonemes.
There are several ways of making an /r/ in American English, which are audibly almost ...
4
votes
Why isn't the vowel in the words "warm" and "war" (in American English) pronounced like the one in the word "talk" (American English)?
In American English, 'r' can change the vowel before it. For many speakers, beard does not have quite the same vowel as either bid or bead, father does not have quite the same vowel as farther, and ...
3
votes
Why is Indian English usually rhotic?
From Wikipedia's page on Indian English
A number of distinctive features of Indian English are due to "the vagaries of English spelling". Most Indian languages, unlike English, have a ...
3
votes
rhotic sound in received pronunciation?
Hi, This is a British pronunciation according to the title. I can hear a rhotic /ɝ/ in the second syllable, however.
The word in question is generation. Non-rhoticity does not affect /r/s that are ...
3
votes
How to pronounce "miracle"?
The "standard" pronunciation of miracle that you will see transcribed in any dictionary is with the vowel of mirror or irritate or tyranny (this vowel can be transcribed in various ways: in the ...
3
votes
Accepted
Is there a name for this articulate, hyper-enunciated, "upper class" American English accent?
Nile Crane's accent is an educated, refined Broadcast American, but quite distant from the so-called mid-Atlantic accent of Kate Hepburn or the early Bette Davis. An example roughly contemporary to ...
3
votes
Accepted
I have a Linking r question
"How are you" = /haʊɑːjuː/~/haʊɑːju/: "linking r" is not used before semivowels in present-day standard Southern British English. (I don't know if any accent exists or has ever existed that does that.)...
3
votes
Pronunciation of word-initial syllabic R in American English
The quick answer is: both versions occur, depending on context, but the more basic form is the one without the glottal stop — this is standard in most contexts, and not glaringly weird even in ...
3
votes
Why isn't the vowel in the words "warm" and "war" (in American English) pronounced like the one in the word "talk" (American English)?
Pronunciation
It’s because in America, unlike in Britain, the homophone-pair war, wore usually have the tense-o vowel /o/ of woe instead of the lax-o vowel /ɔ/ of talk. So wore and war sound like woe ...
2
votes
Why is most North American speech rhotic?
Here is an article from the BBC on this subject. How Americans preserved British English:
One feature of most American English is what linguists call ‘rhoticity’, or the pronunciation of ‘r’ in ...
2
votes
Looking for a minimal triple with /ɑ, ɒ, ɔ/
It's awkward that this is required to work in a rhotic accent, because that unfortunately removes most /a:/ syllables and a good deal of /ɔ:/ syllables, too. Perhaps you'd allow:
lakhs, locks, lawks!
...
2
votes
Received Pronunciation and ambiguity (users vs uses)
No, uses and users are pronounced differently in RP.
uses /juzɪz/
users /juzəz/
2
votes
Are R-colored diphthongs phonemes or not?
How can you tell?
I think the right thing to do is ask a bunch of Americans who haven't thought much about phonetics whether the vowel in beard is the same as the vowel in bead or as the vowel in ...
2
votes
Can most native English speakers pronounce the alveolar trill? (The R in its most emphatic version)
I haven't been able to find too much research addressing this question, but one relevant source is "Intervocalic Rhotic Pronunciation by Adult Learners
of Spanish as a Second Language", by Timothy L. ...
2
votes
Accepted
How do you pronounce, "pleurisy"?
As pertains to the second question The Longman Pronunciation dictionary has this.
pleurisy 'plʊər əs i||'plʊr əs i
This means that in BrE jod is not normally used and that in Gen Am not only jod but ...
2
votes
Accepted
Does the word "pirate" use the /aɪɚ/ phoneme, or the /aɪɹ/ phoneme?
The Longman Pronunciation dictionary gives /paɪᵊr ət/ (also acceptable, /ɪt/), in both BrE and Gen Am. The word has two syllables and superscript schwa stands for the pronunciation of schwa, which is ...
2
votes
Is the /jʊɹ/ phoneme being streamlined to /jɚ/ in General American?
I also noticed that many words like POOR and TOUR have the /ʊɹ/ phoneme increasingly streamlined to /ɔɹ/.
The situation with "pour," at least, is the straightforward result of of the pour-...
2
votes
Pronunciation of word-initial syllabic R in American English
As there isn't a phonemic contrast, it would not be surprising if some speakers use [ɹ̩n] while others use [əɹn]. My impression is that a syllabic consonant is the most common pronunciation; this is ...
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