Re: Pidgin English, extra r.

"benlizross" <benlizro@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote ...
John Atkinson wrote:

"Mitch" <maharri@xxxxxxxxx> wrote...
>
> What about 'geroff'? A 'Harry Potter' word, new to Americans (or
> people like me). I think it means 'get off', but I don't know how > it
> should be pronounced. Is the 'r' dropped, or is there a cockney/
> estuarian glottal stop, or what?

This pronunciation of /t/ is a characteristic of Cockney/estuary, but
it's a voiced tap, not the more common glottal stop, and seems to be
restricted to intervocal position (finally, /t/ is glottal, [?]). See
Wells, "Accents of English", sections 4.2.10. Wells gives as examples
[SVrVp], shut up, and [gAri?], got it.

To me at any rate, it sounds different to the voiced tap used in words
like <writer> by many North Americans and some Australians. But I don't
know what the difference is (more "rhotic"?).

John.

Yes, I remember Mick Jagger being quoted as yelling "Shurrup!" at an
audience somewhere many years ago.

But this tap is not a normal realization of /r/ in the type of English
being represented. In fact if I'm not mistaken it's only found in the
type of English where they say "veddy nice", which is so posh I'm not
sure it exists any more.

It probably still exists in the English of some Indians.

Are you saying that the popular spelling "shurrup" isn't an accurate representation of Mick's pronunciation (a voiced alveolar tap, apparently), in that it's not the same sound as he would use in, say, "stirrup" (a post-alveolar approximant)? Fair enough.

BTW, what's the ASCII IPA for these sounds (in "proper" IPA, an "r" with no tail, and an upside-down "r", respectively)?

John.

.

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