--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Marco Moretti"
<marcomoretti69@...> wrote:
>
> In most American dialects there are two different rhotics:
> one, retroflex, is the native, inerited /r/, while a trilled
> rhotic sound corresponds ot inherited /t/ or /d/ in intervocalic
> position.
You mean a flap not a trill, but I thought the flap was
an allophone of /t/ only, not /d/. At least that's how
it seems in my own dialect. "Matter" and "madder" sound
distinct to me. It could be there's no other difference
in the two but the length of the "a", but I thought that
in a stressed syllable it would be long in any case.
David