rhoticizm

[Hanne Gram Simonsen]

Some more crosslinguistic info on /r/ acquisition - from Norwegian:

Norwegian has both apical and dorsal /r/, depending on dialect. The apical
/r/s are most often not trilled, but rather produced as a tap.

For Norwegian children, /r/ is recognised as a problematic sound, but it is
only the apical /r/ which causes problems even up to 4 and beyond (being
typically substituted with [l], [j], [], but never with [w]). For some,
the (apical) /r/ problem persists into adulthood. The dorsal /r/ does not
cause the same problems and is acquired earlier. It is not uncommon for
speech therapists to teach children from "apical r dialects" to produce a
dorsal /r/ instead of an apical one when they have /r/ problems. This
functions well, also because the dorsal /r/ is acceptable and occasionally
found in speakers with "apical r dialects" as a result of contact with
"dorsal r dialects", and then not at all considered a speech defect, but
normal (and even rather posh).

Hanne Gram Simonsen


*************************
Hanne Gram Simonsen
Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Oslo
P.O.Box 1102, Blindern, 0317 Oslo - Norway
tel: (47) 22 85 41 82;	fax: (47) 22 85 69 19
e-mail: h.g.simonsen at ilf.uio.no