Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:20:00.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Analogy in the emergence of intrusive-r in English1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2013

MÁRTON SÓSKUTHY
MÁRTON SÓSKUTHY*
Affiliation:
Linguistics and English Language, University of Edinburgh, Dugald Stewart Building, 3 Charles Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AD, UKM.Soskuthy@sms.ed.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article presents a novel approach to the phenomenon of intrusive-r in English based on analogy. The main claim of the article is that intrusive-r in non-rhotic dialects of English is the result of the analogical extension of the r~zero alternation shown by words such as far, more and dear. While this idea has been around for a long time, this is the first study that explores this type of analysis in detail. Specifically, I provide an overview of the developments that led to the emergence of intrusive-r and show that they are fully compatible with an analogical approach. This includes the analysis of frequency data taken from an eighteenth-century corpus of English compiled specifically for the purposes of this article and the discussion of a related development, namely intrusive-l. The article also presents a review of the evidence about the variability of intrusive-r, which serves as the basis of an evaluation of previous approaches. Once the notion of analogy is made formally explicit, the analogical approach becomes capable of providing a unified account of the historical development and the variability of intrusive-r. This is demonstrated through a computer simulation of the emergence of the phenomenon based on the eighteenth-century corpus mentioned above. The results of the simulation confirm the predictions of the analogical approach.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 55 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I would like to thank Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero, Patrick Honeybone, László Kálmán, Roger Lass, April McMahon, Ádám Nádasdy, Péter Rácz, Péter Rebrus, Miklós Törkenczy and two anonymous reviewers, who have all contributed to this article significantly in some way or another. All remaining errors (grammatical, stylistic and conceptual) are mine.

References

Albright, Adam. 2009. Modeling analogy as probabilistic grammar. In Blevins, James P. & Blevins, Juliette (eds.), Analogy in grammar: Form and acquisition, 185–213. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Albright, Adam & Hayes, Bruce. 2003. Rules vs. analogy in English past tenses: A computational/experimental study. Cognition 90 (2), 119–61.Google Scholar
Antilla, Arto & Cho, Young-mee Yu. 1998. Variation and change in Optimality Theory. Lingua 104, 31–56.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald, Piepenbrock, Richard & Gulikers, Léon. 1995. The CELEX Lexical Database (release 2). University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA: Linguistic Data Consortium.Google Scholar
Baković, Eric. 1999. Deletion, insertion and symmetrical identity. MS Harvard University.Google Scholar
Bauer, Laurie. 1984. Linking /r/ in RP: some facts. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 14, 74–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo. 2005. The history of English intrusive liquids: Using the present to ascertain the past. Handout of article presented to the Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester, 24 May 2005. www.bermudez-otero.com/intrusion.pdf.Google Scholar
Blevins, Juliette. 1997. Rules in Optimality Theory: Two case studies. In Roca, Iggy (ed.), Derivations and constraints in phonology, 227–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brighton, Henry. 2003. Simplicity as a driving force in linguistic evolution. PhD dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Britton, Derek. 2007. A history of hyper-rhoticity in English. English Language and Linguistics 11 (3), 525–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. 2001. Phonology and language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Matthew Y. & Wang, William S.-Y.. 1975. Sound change: Actuation and implementation. Language 51 (2), 255–81.Google Scholar
Daelemans, Walter, Zavrel, Jakub, van der Sloot, Ko & van den Bosch, Antal. 2007. TiMBL: Tilburg Memory Based Learner, version 6.1, Reference Guide. ILK Research Group Technical Report Series no. 07-07.Google Scholar
Donegan, Patricia 1993. On the phonetic basis of phonological change. In Jones, Charles (ed.), Historical linguistics: Problems and perspectives, 98–130. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Foulkes, Paul. 1998. English [r]-sandhi: A sociolinguistic perspective. Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics & Phonetics 6, 18–39.Google Scholar
Gick, Bryan. 1999. A gesture-based account of intrusive consonants in English. Phonology 16, 24–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gick, Bryan. 2002. The American intrusive L. American Speech 77, 167–83.Google Scholar
Gimson, Alfred Charles. 1980. An introduction to the pronunciation of English. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Halle, Morris & Idsardi, William J.. 1997. r, hypercorrection and the elsewhere condition. In Roca, Iggy (ed.), Derivations and constraints in phonology, 331–48. Oxford: Oxford University Pres.Google Scholar
Harris, John. 1994. English sound structure. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer & MacLagan, Margaret. 2010. Social and phonetic conditioners on the frequency and degree of ‘intrusive /r/’ in New Zealand English. In Preston, Dennis & Niedzielski, Nancy (eds.), A reader in sociophonetics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 41–69.Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer & Sudbury, Andrea. 2005. How rhoticity became /r/-sandhi. Language 81, 799–823.Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer & Warren, Paul. 2002. Experiments on /r/-intrusion. Wellington Working Papers in Linguistics 14, 47–58.Google Scholar
Hock, Hans Henrich. 2003. Analogical change. In Joseph, Brian D. & Janda, Richard D. (eds.), The handbook of historical linguistics, 441–60. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1909. A modern English grammar on historical principles. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Johnson, Keith. 1997. Speech perception without speaker normalization: An exemplar model. In Johnson, Keith & Mullennix, John W. (eds.), Talker variability in speech processing, 145–65. San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Charles. 1989. A history of English phonology. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Jones, Daniel. 1964. An outline of English phonetics. 4th edn.Cambridge: Heffer and Sons.Google Scholar
Kahn, Daniel. 1976. Syllable-based generalisations in English phonology. Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul. 1995. The phonological basis of sound change. In Goldsmith, John A. (ed.), Handbook of phonological theory, 640–70. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kirby, Simon, Dowman, Mike & Griffiths, Thomas L.. 2007. Innateness and culture in the evolution of language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104 (12). 5241–5.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1994. Principles of linguistic change, vol. 1: Internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lass, Roger. 2000. Phonology and morphology. In Blake, Norman (ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 3: 1476–1776, 23–155. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, John J. 1991. Synchronic rule inversion. In Sutton, L., Johnson, C. & Shields, R. (eds.), Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 192–207. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Google Scholar
McCarthy, John J. 1993. A case of surface constraint violation. Canadian Journal of Linguistics 38, 169–95.Google Scholar
McDavid, Raven I. 1958. The dialects of American English. In Nelson Francis, W. (ed.), The structure of American English. New York: The Ronald Press Company.Google Scholar
McMahon, April. 2000. Lexical phonology and the history of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McMahon, April & Foulkes, Paul. 1995. Sound change, phonological rules and articulatory phonology. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 9, 1–20.Google Scholar
McMahon, April, Foulkes, Paul & Tollfree, Laura. 1994. Gestural representation and Lexical Phonology. Phonology 11, 277–316.Google Scholar
Mompeán-Gonzalez, Jose & Mompeán-Guillamón, Pilar. 2009. /r/-liaison in English: An empirical study. Cognitive Linguistics 20 (4), 733–76.Google Scholar
Nosofsky, Robert M. 1986. Attention, similarity and the identification-categorization relationship. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 115, 39–57.Google Scholar
Nosofsky, Robert M. 1988. Similarity, frequency and category representations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition 14, 54–65.Google Scholar
Nosofsky, Robert M. & Zaki, Safa R.. 2002. Exemplar and prototype models revisited: Response strategies, selective attention, and stimulus generalization. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 28 (5), 924–40.Google Scholar
Oudeyer, Pierre-Yves. 2006. Self-organization in the evolution of speech. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B. 2001. Exemplar dynamics: Word frequency, lenition, and contrast. In Bybee, Joan L. & Hopper, Paul (eds.), Frequency effects and the emergence of lexical structure, 137–57. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B. 2002. Word-specific phonetics. In Gussenhoven, Carlos & Warner, N. (eds.), Laboratory phonology, vol. VII. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B. 2003. Phonetic diversity, statistical learning and acquisition of phonology. Language and Speech 46, 115–54.Google Scholar
Sheridan, Thomas. 1762/1803. A course of lectures on elocution, 2nd American edition. London: Strahan.Google Scholar
Skousen, Royal. 1989. Analogical modeling of language. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publisher.Google Scholar
Skousen, Royal, Lonsdale, Deryl & Parkinson, Dilworth B.. 2002. Analogical modeling. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Sóskuthy, Márton. 2009. Why r? An alternative look at intrusive-r in English. MA thesis, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.Google Scholar
Uffmann, Christian. 2007. Intrusive [r] and optimal epenthetic consonants. Language Sciences 29, 451–76.Google Scholar
Ussishkin, Adam & Wedel, Andrew B.. 2009. Lexical access, effective contrast and patterns in the lexicon. In Boersma, Paul & Hamann, Silke (eds.), Phonology in perception, 267–92. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Vennemann, Theo. 1972. Rule inversion. Lingua 29, 209–42.Google Scholar
Wedel, Andrew B. 2004. Self-organization and categorical behavior in phonology. PhD dissertation, University of California at Santa Cruz.Google Scholar
Wedel, Andrew B. 2007. Feedback and regularity in the lexicon. Phonology 24, 147–85.Google Scholar
Wells, John. 1982. Accents of English. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar