Would you help me?

[Bill Kretzschmar]

You could look at the standard accounts in Kurath and McDavid's
*Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States* (1961) or Labov's
*Sociolinguistic Patterns* (1972), but these are not very
enlightening.  The best source is W. R. Van Riper's 1957 Michigan
dissertation on the history of postvocalic -5 in the Eastern states--but
you may not have access to that.  The best article, I think, is by Edward
Stephenson, "The Beginnings of the Losss of Postvocalic -r in North
Carolina" Journal of English Linguistics 2 (1968):57-77.  That you should
be able to find.

WAK
                         *****
Bill Kretzschmar                Professor of English and Linguistics
Dept. of English                Phone: 706-542-2246
University of Georgia           Fax:  706-583-0027
Athens, GA  30602-6205          Atlas Web Site: us.english.uga.edu