"Is is"

[Geoff Nathan]

At 11:44 AM 8/2/2004, you wrote:
>and
>speaking of "wrong," how has it come about, that, despite historical
>origin, *every* initial "r" is rounded? If you watch the mouths of
>animated-cartoon characters, even *they* say such as "Oright"!

Well the reason is a good acoustic/phonological one.  The exceedingly weird
English approximant /r/ is characterized by a lowered third formant
(actually the second formant is lowered too, but not crucially,
IIRC).  Rounding lengthens the whole vocal tract, lowering all resonances
somewhat.  In keeping with fortitions applying preferentially in onsets,
especially stressed onsets, we find the rounding as a way of enhancing the
'r-ness' of English r's.  Since English /r/ is otherwise an extremely
non-prototypical consonant (involving virtually no airflow obstruction)
anything that improves its likelihood of being detectable is likely to be
encouraged.

Geoff