Yags and other onomastic peculiarities

[Robert McColl Millar]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
There's a problem in seeing the Henry > Hal formation as being due to
non-Rhotic speakers. At the time when this phenomenon was still
productive (I'm thinking here of novels such as _Moll Flanders_ and
earlier), we assume that /r/ was still pronounced in these positions in
all dialects of English.
        I lived in London in the late eighties, at the time when Terry
Venables, the football manager, was coaching a Spanish side (Barcelona,
I think). The tabloids took great pleasure from referring to him as 'El
Tel'. I think I always assumed that this /l/ phenomenon was due to (a)
the fact that in South-East English dialects there is often no front
allophone of /l/, even before front vowels and (b) the subsequent
vocalisation of /l/, leading to confusion with /w/ (a similar
phenomenon to one found in many Scots dialects). I had thought that the
third part of this was that /r/ was no longer pronounced in similar
contexts, and was therefore capable of confusion. I based this on the
fact that so many people from the South-East have no /r/ at all,
apparently having /w/ instead -- a 'speech defect' elsewhere, but
perhaps a genuine sound change there due to lack of use of /r/.
        This idea is somewhat put on its head if the /r/ /l/ variation
predates the loss of /r/ medially and finally, however.

Robert Millar
University of Aberdeen

On Tue, 6 Feb 2001 12:40:49 EST "Dr S. Watts" <sw271 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:


> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> --On Mon, Feb 5, 2001 9:59 am +0000 Richard Coates
> <richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > It seems to be in competition with a much rarer tendency to replace the
> > /r/ with /l/, as in:
> >
> > Terence > Tel (unless restricted to football managers - I've heard Tez
> > too) Derek > Del
>
> Rarer in contemporary English, but commoner historically:
> Henry - Harry - Hal
> Mary - Molly - Moll (and Polly - Poll)
> Dorothy - Dolly - Doll
> Sarah - Sally - Sal.
>
> Presumably the clip yielding a final -r is unsatisfactory for speakers of
> non-rhotic varieties of English. But why or when the change from
> predominantly -l to predominantly -z/-s, I don't know.
>
> Sheila Watts
> ___________________________________________________
> Dr Sheila Watts
> University Lecturer in German
> G06 Kennedy Building
> Newnham College
> Cambridge CB3 9DF
> Telephone +44-1223-335816

----------------------
Robert McColl Millar
enl097 at abdn.ac.uk