Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?

[Bill Palmer]

I lived in extreme East Texas (Orange, to be specific...about 25 mi from
Beaumont) as a boy, and, as Wilson has pointed out, "throw" was never heard,
only "chunk".  Also, in class, the word "zero" seemed to be
unknown..."aught" (or, I suppose, "ought") was used exclusively.  This was
early 1950s...I wonder if that's still the case.

Bill Palmer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 8:35 PM
Subject: Re: Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
> â?"â?"â?"
> 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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