Bre'r

[Dennis R. Preston]

More than one good person ruined by spelling. My mother pronounces
every consonant in "raspberry" (except for the two "r"s of course).

dInIs



>My eldest uncle was called [br@] by his siblings.  Strangely, when
>my eldest aunt read "Uncle Remus" to us, she said "[brEr] Rabbit"!
>
>At 10:37 AM 8/12/01 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>Does anyone know if in Southern or African-American speech there are forms
>>parallel to 'brother' rendered as 'bre'r'  (which apparently is meant to
>>represent a schwa, /br@/) in words like 'mother' or 'other' and if
>>not why?
>>Is the voiced dental fricative usually /d/ between vowels (or would this be
>>word final in a non-rhotic variety?) or lost?  e.g., Either, neither.   I was
>>thinking about this because there are indications in Elizabethan verse that
>>the fricative was either weakened or lost in this position.   Metrically
>>these words are sometimes treated as a single syllable (c.f. ne'er, o'er for
>>never, over) but in the case of either, etc. the words are never written with
>>apostrophes (ei'er).
>>
>>Dale Coye
>>The College of NJ

--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736
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