Welcome to the list, Phil.
The labiodental approximant [V] (which
could be defined as a "lax" version of [v], pronounced without any lip-rounding
and without audible friction, as if halfway between [w] and [v]) is a rather
common substitute for English /r/. I suspect that Lawwy's speech disorder was of
that kind. The substitution of /w/ for /r/, so
that "red" and "wed" don't contrast at all, has also been
reported, but is vewy, vewy wawe.
The cause of the defect can't be determined
confidently without examining the speaker in question. It could be some minor
physical malformation or impairment of neuromuscular control, impeding
articulations involving the tip of the tongue (at least one person on this list
will inevitably think of damage caused by heavy-metal poisoning). If Lawwy
parents were British, perhaps one of them had a similar condition and Lawwy
simply happened to imitate the wrong model. This "labiodental /r/" is, I think,
more common in Britain than in the US (it apparently better matches the British
realisation of /r/ in acoustic terms) and even used to be regarded as
an upper-class affectation. Now the tide has turned and some authors associate
it with Estuary English for a change -- without good reason, as far as I'm able
to judge.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2001 10:54 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Vwikings.
In High School one of
my classmates always pronounced his R's as W's, Elmer Fudd-like. At the
time I wondered why but forgot about it until this posting tweaked my
memory. His mother tongue (and his parents') was English so it was not
caused by his learning a new language imperfectly. My question is what
would cause his inability to form the r sound. By the way, his first name
was Lawrence so he always introduced himself as Lawwy.