Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?

[Wilson Gray]

Sigh! Dialect is as weird as language. Down home in East Texas, though
"throw" was known to us local-BE speakers, *chunk* - presumably
originally *chuck* - was by far the preferred term. The pronunciation
of *throw*, when it was used, as "th'ow" [Tow] was also very common.

When we moved up (relatively) North to Saint Louis, I found that
*chunk* was rare to the vanishing point, usually a feature of the
speech only of those of us who were FOB - "fresh off the [Greyhound]
bus" - from behind the Cotton Curtain and not yet assimilated. *Very*
rarely, Saint Louis BE-speakers dropped the /r/ in thr-: "th'ow
(throw) th'ee (three)," etc. But the Spanish-like long, trilled [R]+
  was definitely the standard in this environment.

When I first moved to the Northeast, where people pronounce /r/ in
thr- as [r](?), so that, e.g. "three" sounds, to my ear, like *thuree*
[Tri], I was freaked out. I simply couldn't figure out how it was done
without inserting a fully-vocalized schwa, as in the Army's [T at Rijp],
used by some NCO's in counting cadence. Even in that pronunciation,
though, the trilled [R] was used.

(I'm pretty sure that "R" means something different in the *real* IPA.
But, what can you do? So, gimme some slack, if you gnome sane.)

-Wilson
.
On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Joseph Salmons<jsalmons at wisc.edu> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Joseph Salmons <jsalmons at WISC.EDU>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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: Â '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:
>
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>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â 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
>>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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