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My eldest uncle was called [br@] by his siblings. Strangely, when
my eldest aunt read "Uncle Remus" to us, she said "[brEr]
Rabbit"!<br>
<br>
At 10:37 AM 8/12/01 -0400, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font face="arial" size=2>Does
anyone know if in Southern or African-American speech there are forms
<br>
parallel to 'brother' rendered as 'bre'r' (which apparently is
meant to <br>
represent a schwa, /br@/) in words like 'mother' or 'other' and if not
why? <br>
Is the voiced dental fricative usually /d/ between vowels (or would this
be <br>
word final in a non-rhotic variety?) or lost? e.g., Either,
neither. I was <br>
thinking about this because there are indications in Elizabethan verse
that <br>
the fricative was either weakened or lost in this position.
Metrically <br>
these words are sometimes treated as a single syllable (c.f. ne'er, o'er
for <br>
never, over) but in the case of either, etc. the words are never written
with <br>
apostrophes (ei'er). <br>
<br>
Dale Coye <br>
The College of NJ</font><font face="arial"> </font></blockquote><br>
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