r to l dissimilation in "infrastructure"?

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:37 AM -0700 7/1/08, Nancy Hall wrote:
>Hello,
>
>In a recent elicitation study, I ran into a pronunciation of
>"infrastructure" in which the first [r@] was replaced with a syllabic [l].

If it's a syllabic [l], could it be a blend of "infrastructure" with
"infiltrate"?

LH

>The speaker who produced it is African-American, male, about 40, originally
>from New York and has lived in Baltimore and Southern California. Has anyone
>else encountered this pronunciation?
>
>The reason that I was eliciting 'infrastructure' was to see what percentage
>of speakers drop the first [r], as part of a study of r-dissimilation.
>Substituting [l] for [r] could be an alternate method of r-dissimilation, so
>it would be quite interesting if this is an established variant.
>
>--Nancy Hall
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org