From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 2004
Date: 2000-04-02
----- Original Message -----From: Mark OdegardSent: Sunday, April 02, 2000 8:21 PMSubject: [cybalist] Balto and Slavic Rs.In Polish the normal articulation of R is a strong alveolar trill (as in patriotically overdone Scottish English) in word-initial and preconsonantal positions. Intervocalically and after a consonant it's often reduced to a tap, but a brief trill is also common, especially in slow speech. Word-finally after a consonant (as in Piotr) a devoiced (non-syllabic!) variety is used. Some people use a uvular trill in all positions, this is an idiosyncratic habit, sometimes regarded as a speech defect. This is my own pronunciation, by the way. When I began to study phonetics, it took me a few days to learn to pronounce the normative apical R. I use it when reciting, reading aloud or singing, but not in casual speech. The American tap is slightly weaker than the Polish tapped R, but something pretty similar to the latter can be heard from old-fashioned Britons in very, hurry, etc., and also postconsonantally in green, bright, etc. in some varieties of Irish English and in British dialects.As far as I know, Russian has a similar range of allophones, but in Russian there is also a palatalised "rhotic", pronounced with the body of the tongue raised towards the roof of the mouth.Piotr
This is somewhat off topic, but a native-speaker of Lithuanian made this comment on another forum which I follow:Yes, a clear Russian or Lithuanian "r" can be heard in "shutup" so I make use of it when trying to imitate native speakers.The context is how English tends to 'drop' certain internal and word-final Ts and Ds, making 'shut up' sound (to an eye spelling) something like shuh-up, shaw-up. The same thing can happen with -nt- and -nd- though nasalization is the cause of the apparent disappearance.Most native-speakers of my particular brand of AmE (Northern Midlands with some California, and New York) actually move the tongue into position for the T or D, and even make the connection with the alveolar ridge, but it is nonetheless often inaudible. It's the 'tap' which makes 'ladder' and 'latter' homophones, or makes 'internet' sound like 'inner net' to an untrained ear.I'm curious about this Lithuanian or Russian, R, however. Any comments from the Balto-Slavicists? There seems to be a lesson in phonology here, and what might happen in an adstratal context.Mark.