/r/ deletion and insertion

[Beverly Flanigan]

Another is "do(r)mitory"--varying between diphthong [aw] in South and open
O in Baltimore area.  Diane Rehm of NPR (and from the Baltimore area) does
the latter in other words too where she deletes /r/.

Beverly Flanigan

At 03:08 PM 7/27/2006, you wrote:
>On Jul 27, 2006, at 1:59 AM, Nancy Hall wrote:
>
>>There is a sporadic process by which English speakers (of rhotic
>>dialects) may delete an /r/ in a word that contains another /r/. Some
>>common examples of this dissimilation include:
>>
>>Feb(r)uary (here a /y/ appears when /r/ deletes)
>>lib(r)ary
>>vet(er)inarian
>>temp(er)ature
>>su(r)prise
>
>the third and fourth probably got there in two steps:
>   C at r@ > Cr@ > C@  (where @ stands for whatever reduced vowel you
>have in the word in question)
>
>also: pa(r)ticular and qua(r)ter (esp. in the name of the coin).
>some others have come up here over the years, but lord knows how
>you'd search for them.
>
>there might not have been regional/class/etc. research done on these,
>just because they're so widespread.  but there probably are some
>patterns there.
>
>arnold
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org