LINGUIST List 2.720

Sun 27 Oct 1991

Disc: R-Linking

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

  • "John J. McCarthy", R-Linking
  • , 2.707 R-Linking
  • Gorka Elordieta, Re: 2.707 R-Linking
  • Nancy L. Dray, r-linking/"the issue-r-is"
  • Geoffrey Russom, Re: 2.707 R-Linking

    Message 1: R-Linking

     Date: Fri, 25 Oct 91 15:20 EST
    From: "John J. McCarthy" <MCCARTHYcs.umass.EDU>
    Subject: R-Linking
    The forthcoming BLS 17 Proceedings contains a paper by me on R-linking and dropping in Eastern Massachusetts. It discusses a number of facts, particularly involving function words, that have not been considered previously. For example, there is a remarkable contrast between He shoulda eaten already. and He's gonna[r] even if you're not ready. I argue that both deletion and insertion are required, that the question of rule "inversion" misconceives the problem, and that hiatus is not implicated in the contemporary situation. John McCarthy mccarthycs.umass.edu Replies should be addressed to me directly, since I do not read this bulletin board usually.

    Message 2: 2.707 R-Linking

     Date: Fri, 25 Oct 91 21:34:14 EDT
    From: <Alexis_Manaster_Ramermts.cc.wayne.edu>
    Subject: 2.707 R-Linking
    David Stampe makes a fundamental error in reasoning in his recent posting, arguing that the linking /r/ is "underlying". (I put 'underlying' in quotes because, as a good declarative phonologist, I reject that notion as a snare and a delusion, but for the sake of the argument, I will pretend I know what is meant by this term.) The error lies in assuming that, since r-insertion would be phonetically unnatural, it cannot be involved in a process which is characterized by a great degree of automaticity. But that's circular, since the correlation between phonetic naturalness and automacity was supposed to be a discovery, not a postulate, of the school of natural phonology. The linking r, as well as numerous other examples (such as the /n/ that shows up between a word-final /t/ and a following word-initial /y/ (and perhaps elsewhere) in Korean), are simply counterexamples to this. And I think that, since in many other cases the claims of natural phonology seem to be brilliantly vindicated, the appropriate response to such counterexamples is not turn a factual theory into an a priori formal system, but to see what makes these counterexamples different and to modify the theory to account for them. Moreover, it would not be unreasonable to expect that David should note somewhere in passing that this critique of natural phonology has been made before and has never received an adequate response. (Not having read the Donegan paper referred to by David yet, I confine my remarks to the Stampe posting on LINGUIST only!) I almost forgot to add that such spellings as Eeyore for (H)ee(h)aw and such hypercorrect pronunciations as idear for idea have no bearing on the question of whether the linking r is "underlying" or not. One might as well say that when people started spelling delight with a 'gh', that this proved that /ae/ is underlyingly /ix/ in English. Or that when I use /x/ for /h/ in speaking Dutch (as sometimes happens, especially in words with both these sounds in close proximity like 'geheten') that that shows that /x/ us the "underlying" form for /h/ in my English.

    Message 3: Re: 2.707 R-Linking

    Date: Fri, 25 Oct 91 20:23:12 PDT
    From: Gorka Elordieta <elordiegirtab.usc.edu>
    Subject: Re: 2.707 R-Linking
    To David Stampe: could we possibly generalize the rule which deletes the underlying /r/ (or blocks the insertion of it) so as to say that an /r/ will never appear before a stressed vowel? (e.g. 'I saw Italy' would have the verb ending in a schwa, whereas 'I saw it' or 'I saw a car' would have a surfacing /r/? I'm sorry but I'm not a native speaker of English, nor do I know somebody who speaks those dialects with the so-called 'r-linking' phenomenon. Thank you. Gorka Elordieta USC, Los Angeles elordiegirtab.usc.edu

    Message 4: r-linking/"the issue-r-is"

     Date: Sat, 26 Oct 91 21:19:40 CDT
    From: Nancy L. Dray <draysapir.uchicago.edu>
    Subject: r-linking/"the issue-r-is"
    re linking "r" after "u" (cf. 2.681, 2.692, 2.707): During the Thomas/Hill hearings, one of the senators* said "the issue-r-is". This struck me at the time as an unusual instance of r-linking, and now, reading LINGUIST, I see that others, too, would find it somewhat unexpected. My mother, who grew up in the Bronx, has some vestiges of r-linking, but not after "u"; this fits with Ellen Prince's observation about her own New York City dialect. By the way, has anyone out there who's interested in this checked the Linguistic Atlas? I believe that one of the questionnaire items is "law and order," and field workers have noted down other data on the distribution of r-linking as well. Now a tangent: Listening to the Senate committee during the Thomas hearings, and also to George Bush, I have been struck by the use of "ye" (I mean something like a schwa for the vowel --I can't write phonetics in e-mail) for "you", in contexts where I would really have "you" or at least something quite a bit closer to it. Is this an attempt to sound "folksy," or are (at least some of) these individuals just speaking their native dialects? NLD *(I'm not sure which senator said this, but I know which question it occurred in and could find out who asked that question, if anyone wants to know; it may have been Strom Thurmond.)

    Message 5: Re: 2.707 R-Linking

    Date: Sun, 27 Oct 91 08:55:29 EST
    From: Geoffrey Russom <EL403015brownvm.brown.edu>
    Subject: Re: 2.707 R-Linking
    The claim attacked by stemberger wasn't a claim about proper phonetic transcription of English high tense vowels. What I claimed was that English [u:] or [uw] develops something like a w-glide to prevent hiatus and [i:] or [iy] develops something like a y-glide. I suggested that you don't get r-linking after the high tense vowels because they are already provided for in this way. Question: is there anything against using [uw] and [iy] for representation of underlying forms? Question: what does a phonetician do with words like "appreciate" and "cooing" or phrases like "too easy" and "tree apples"? Do these have hiatus?