Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?

[Joseph Salmons]

There's a set of cases where clusters with a voiceless fricative + r
lose the r in some Southern speech. DARE gives r-less 'from' mostly
from African-American speakers, but I'm betting that it exists in
among white speakers -- almost sure of it.

A few I have (still today, in unguarded speech) are with the voiceless
interdental fricative -- notably in 'through, throw (throwed/threw/
thrown)'. It's probably lexical for me at least, since most words
sound bizarre without the r:  'three, thread, throttle, throne', etc.
In a few, I can imagine variability but it's hard to tell up here so
far from home: 'throes, throat'. Or maybe some part is phonological --
lose the r before tense /u/ (but a rare enough combo that you can't be
sure), variably before tense /o/, with the r-less 'threw'-form by
analogy.

Anyway, that's just a long clumsy prelude to a simple question: Does
anybody know anything about this general pattern?

Joe

On Jun 16, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Mark Mandel wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Ahra-lessnes in white-Southern speech (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> My friend from rural Middle Tennessee - a distinguished attorney -
>> always
>> says "fum."
>>
>> Other than that and maybe one or two other items, he's got all his
>> r's.
>
> And even that isn't r-lessness (arrhoticity), which AFAIK refers to
> loss of *postvocalic* /r/.
>
> m a m
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org