intervocalic voicing of fricatives

[Prof. R. Sussex]

I have been struck - on NBC's "Today", CNN, NPR and other American
sources - with the increasing frequency of voiced intervocalic or
inter-voiced-segment fricatives, especially in proper names:

        Jerusalem       [-z-]
        Kashmir         [-zh-] (can't do voiced palatalo-alveolars in email)

although the unvoiced parallels are also heard.

Has there been any work describing this shift (as distinct from other
intervocalic voicings like flapping and words like "exit" as [-gz-],
which looks well established as favoured in US English: MW has it
first; OED only has [-ks-]). Is it lexically most found in foreign
proper names?

Roly Sussex

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Roly Sussex
Professor of Applied Language Studies
Department of French, German, Russian, Spanish and Applied Linguistics
School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies
The University of Queensland
Brisbane
Queensland 4072
AUSTRALIA

Office: Forgan-Smith Tower 403
Phone:  +61 7 3365 6896
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Email:  r.sussex at mailbox.uq.edu.au
Web:    http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/slccs/profiles/sussex.html
School's website:
        http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/slccs/

Language Talkback ABC radio:
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