Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site vaxine.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!gatech!seismo!lll-crg!ucdavis!ucbvax!decvax!wanginst!vaxine!mm
From: mm@vaxine.UUCP (Mark Mudgett)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Ve: vDisland R
Message-ID: <4@vaxine.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Dec-85 21:43:14 EST
Article-I.D.: vaxine.4
Posted: Fri Dec  6 21:43:14 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Dec-85 03:08:59 EST
Organization: Automatix, Inc., Billerica, MA
Lines: 28

In article <393@bcsaic.UUCP> michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (michael b maxwell) writes:
>In article <2554@sjuvax.UUCP> tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody) writes:
>>Back in Rhode Island (actually pronounced > r'DIsland ), there is an
>>unusual consonant transformation, which I've never heard anywhere
>>else.  In certain contexts, the 'r' sound is changed to a rather soft
>'v' sound.
>I can't tell for sure from your description, but it sounds like it might
>be a bilabial fricative.  The usual "v" in English is a labiodental
>fricative; if you stand in front of a mirror, you can see your lower lip
>touch your upper teeth when you make it.  In a bilabial fricative, your
>lower lip would almost touch your upper lip.  A "w" is similar, but your
>lips are rounded (and definitely don't close).
>If this is the sound "r" turns into, I'd agree it's a very unusual shift.

I think that this sound is veally a lobiodental fvicative.  It is pronounced
as if the fvont upper teeth and the lower lip were pvonouncing a V (although
the jaw and lower lip are a bit more velaxed than in pvonouncing a V); while
the tongue (at the back of the mouth) is pvonouncing the letter R.  It's as
if the R sound fvom the back of the mouth is passing thvough the V sound
at the fvont of the mouth.
I'm not fvom vDisland, but I have heard people fvom Pvovidence pvonounce their
R's this way.
-- 
------------------------------------
 Mark C. Mudgett
 uucp:  ...!decvax!encore!vaxine!mm
 phone: 617-667-7900x2394
------------------------------------