Re: [tied] Pronunciation of "r"

Thanks for your opinion, Patrick. You know, I was very anglophilic and believed that English was simply the most conservative IE language in terms of preservation of sonorants (of course especially of /w/ but then I thought also of /r/), but the more I look at the evidence, including the evidence within English, the more I tend to believe that the trilled /r/ was the proper pronunciation, and the untrilled alveolar or retroflex approximant was probably a preconsonantal or pre-coda phenomenon ("pre-coda": I don't know the correct term for word-final position, before a pause). There is no other language on Earth, I believe, that has general English /r/ in non-preconsonantal or pre-codal position (I have heard a similar /r/ in preconsonantal position in Dutch, and Mandarin has a somewhat similar /r/ but I think this too is only postvocalic). I deeply wonder what possible reason there is for English being so extremely atypical among modern languages, and why would /r/ change in a direction opposite to that of almost every other language on the planet. But then I think that's to be expected in a language where "long i" is phonetically /ay/, "long e" is /i:/, and "long a" is /ey/ - what other language that uses the Roman alphabet has such values for the vowels? And I won't comment any further about the highly peculiar spelling and pronunciation "rules" (more like a set of exceptions) of English.

I apologize if I digress, but I find English very mysterious even though it is my mother tongue.

Now, I must learn about Nostratic - I am completely ignorant in this field. So it is generally accepted that Arabic is indeed related to Indo-European? Sounds like the legend of the Tower of Babel and the other Biblical ideas about the origins of language might not be all that far off from the truth, at least metaphorically.

Andrew Jarrette

Patrick Ryan <proto-language@...> wrote:

Nice summary of developments. My vote is for trilled /r/. Why? The language that has best retained the Nostratic sound-system is Arabic; and Arabic has a trilled /r/. Patrick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Jarrette" <anjarrette@...> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 10:26 PM Subject: [tied] Pronunciation of "r" - again? > Hi cybalist members, > > I cannot remember whether I already posted the question I am about to > post now. I know I posted it on the "Ask-A-Linguist" site, and I > believe it may have been this question for which I was directed to > Cybalist by the "Ask-A-Linguist" moderators. I tried to do a search > for this question in our message database, but I could not narrow the > parameters sufficiently to weed out extraneous messages. Having said > this, I probably did submit this question before, perhaps about a > year or more ago, but I will submit it again because I still don't > have an answer in my mind: > > What is the consensus view on the original pronunciation of the Indo- > European phoneme /r/? Most modern IE languages have a "rolled" > or "trilled" r, whether by the tip of the tongue or the uvula, which > suggests that by numerical probabilities alone, IE /r/ was probably > trilled too. But then where did the prevailing untrilled English /r/ > come from (the /r/ of almost all English dialects and accents with > the chief exception of Scottish)? Is it a "softening" of an earlier > trilled /r/? And why then does William Dwight Whitney say that > Sanskrit /r/ "is clearly shown by its influence in the euphonic > processes of the language to be a lingual sound, or one made with the > tip of the tongue turned up into the dome of the palate. It thus > resembles the English smooth r, and, like this, seems to have been > untrilled" (He goes on to say that Panini reckons it a "lingual" > while other grammarians define it as being made "at the roots of the > teeth" which might suggest a trilled r, but no grammarian makes any > mention of vibration). If an ancient language like Sanskrit had an > untrilled r, would that point in favour of IE /r/ being untrilled? I > know some have said that IE /r/ probably varied from place to place > and person to person. But surely one pronunciation must have > dominated? > I have pointed out before (to "Ask-A-Linguist") that the development > of /z/ to /r/ in Germanic and Latin suggests that the /r/ that > developed such was untrilled, because /z/ and such /r/ would be > linked in pronunciation by their continuant (non-obstructive) > pronunciation, unlike trilled /r/ which has obstruction. This > suggests that perhaps all /r/ were untrilled originally in these > languages, since the /r/ from /z/ merged completely with other /r/. > However, countering this is the observation that the initial > sequence /wr/ which existed suggests that /r/ was trilled, since an > untrilled /r/ would make the preceding /w/ practically inaudible (try > to pronounce an English /w/ immediately followed by an English /r/ > (plus a vowel) and you will see that it sounds too much like > simple /r/. Trilled /r/ on the other hand would make the /w/ more > distinct). Also countering the first argument is the observation > that /sr/ in Germanic and some other languages became /str/, which > suggests that the obstruction of a trilled /r/ became manifested as a > plosive /t/ after /s/. An untrilled /r/ would not be likely to cause > such a change (and an English /r/ would probably tend to change > the /s/ to /sh/ (/s^/), similar to how English /tr/ and /dr/ sound > like /ts^r/ and /dz^r/ (chr and jr in English letters)) in my > opinion.) Lastly, certain words in English suggest that English /r/, > at least in some positions, was originally trilled: words such > as "father", "gather", "weather", "mother" originally had /d/ > before /r/ not /dh/ (voiced interdental fricative). To me this > suggests that it was a trilled /r/ that occasioned the change to /dh/ > (if you try pronouncing a dental (not alveolar) /d/ plus trilled /r/ > you will see that the /d/ tends to sound like /dh/. An alveolar /d/ > tends to get absorbed by the trilled /r/, in my opinion). So maybe > English /r/ actually was trilled once like all the other modern IE > languages', and only recently softened. Countering this possibly is > the recognition that Old English back diphthongs before /r/ plus > consonant ("heard", "heorte") suggest a pronunciation of /r/ that > produced a back glide - probably a retroflex approximant, in my > opinion. At least before consonants Old English /r/ might have been > an approximant, while elsewhere it might have been trilled. > > Of course, these are only my personal theories. You may have seen > them before, I probably did post these arguments previously on > Cybalist. But I would really like to know what is the majority > opinion of the original pronunciation of IE /r/: was it untrilled as > in general modern English and as claimed for Sanskrit, or was it > trilled as in the majority of modern languages? I am curious to know > whether English is conservative in this respect as it is conservative > in its retention of the phoneme /w/ in initial position. I will save > any responses to this posting to my hard drive, so that I will not > ask this question yet another time. > > Andrew Jarrette > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > >

Re: [tied] Pronunciation of "r" - again?