Long-Distance /R/-Dissimilation in American English

Long-Distance /r/-Dissimilation in American
English

Nancy Hall
August 14, 2009

1 Introduction

In many varieties of American English, it is possible to drop one /r/ from certain words that contain two /r/s, such as su(r)prise, pa(r)ticular, gove(r)nor, and co(r)ner. This type of /r/-deletion is done by speakers who are basically ‘rhotic’; that is, who generally do not drop /r/ in any other position. It is a type of dissimilation, because it avoids the presence of multiple rhotics within a word.¹
This paper has two goals. The ﬁrst is to expand the description of American
/r/-dissimilation by bringing together previously published examples of the process with new examples from an elicitation study and from corpora. This data set reveals new generalizations about the phonological environments that favor dissimilation.
The second goal is to contribute to the long-running debate over why and how dissimilation happens, and particularly long-distance dissimilation. There is dispute over whether long-distance dissimilation is part of the grammar at all, and whether its functional grounding is a matter of articulatory constraints, processing constraints, or perception. Data from American /r/-dissimilation are especially important for this debate, because the process is active, it is not restricted to only a few morphemes, and it occurs in a living language whose phonetics can be studied. Arguments in the literature are more often based on ancient diachronic dissimilation processes, or on processes that apply synchronically only in limited morphological contexts (and hence are likely fossilized remnants of once wider patterns).
In this paper, I will concentrate only on long-distance /r/-dissimilation, which
I deﬁne as dissimilation of /r/s that are separated by at least one consonant. This means that some of the most famous cases of /r/-dissimilation, such as lib(r)ary, Feb(r)uary, mirr(or) and pre(r)ogative, are not discussed. I make this distinction

¹Dissimilation affects both consonantal [r] and vocalic [@~]. Throughout this paper, I will use /r/ as a shorthand to refer to both.

1because of evidence that short-distance /r/-dissimilation has different causes and operates through different means than long-distance dissimilation (see [Author, in prep.]).
For long-distance /r/-dissimilation, I argue that the data support Ohala (1981)’s contention that dissimilation stems from perceptual errors, when a listener hypercorrects for perceived assimilation. English /r/ has drawn-out acoustic ‘resonances’ that can cause a listener to be unsure how many /r/s a word contains. Drawing on phonetic studies, I argue that /r/ tends to disappear precisely where it should be most phonetically masked by the presence of a second /r/. Resonances can also cause listeners to err on the side of perceiving too many /r/s, and this produces colloquial insertion of /r/ in words already containing an /r/, such as farmiliar,

perservere, and sherbert.

I argue that /r/-dissimilation in American English remains only a pattern of sporadic lexical changes. While the phonological grammar may affect the way that misperceptions change lexical representations, long-distance dissimilation per se is not an active part of the grammar, and there is no evidence for a phonological constraint against multiple /r/s at a distance.

2 Introducing the pattern

2.1 History and sociolinguistics of /r/-dissimilation

Dissimilatory dropping of /r/ has occurred in America at least since the nineteenth century, and likely earlier. The ﬁrst description of the phenomenon by a linguist is that of Hempl (1893), based on his own Southern Michigan dialect. It was also sometime in the nineteenth century that the city of Alburquerque dropped the ﬁrst /r/ from its name, likely due to dissimilation. Stephenson (1956:275-6) suggests that dissimilation was active in North Carolina in the eighteenth century, based on (rather scant) evidence from naive spelling patterns. Some writers drop only one r from words like orcha(r)ds (1730 and 1732), gove(r)ner (1781 and 1787), and

la(r)ger (1799).

My impression, based on discussion with Americans from different regions, is that /r/-dissimilation (at least in unstressed syllables) is now common in most, and perhaps all, rhotic dialects of the US. There are few concrete data on this, however. Only a few examples of dissimilation have been included in dialect surveys—barbitu(r)ate, by Bert Vaux; ca(r)tridge and lib(r)ary by Kurath & McDavid 1961—and each of these is somewhat phonologically atypical.
In general, /r/-dissimilation is not stigmatized in America, in particular not when it occurs in unstressed syllables as in gove(r)nor (Wolfram & SchillingEstes 1998:50, Merriam-Webster 1994:436, American Heritage:220). Dissimila-

2tory deletion of /r/ in stressed syllables is rarer and perhaps more frowned upon than deletion in unstressed syllables. I have heard negative remarks about speakers who dissimilate in "f(r)ustrated, for example. Murray (1986:24) examines /r/-deletion in qua(r)ter as a sociolinguistic variable in St. Louis, Missouri, and finds that deletion is more common for lower class speakers and in less formal styles. Even for upper class speakers in a formal style, however, it occurs in 34% of tokens, so the level of stigmatization must be slight. Dissimilation may also be somewhat stigmatized when it involves loss of a syllable. Elster (1999), a prescriptivist, cautions against shortening lab(or)atory, and humorist Gene Weingarten, in a Washington Post column of September 17, 2006, describes how his editor ‘speaks like a man who grew up in the Land of the Lost Syllables. Tom takes his dog to the “vetinarian”.’
While this paper concentrates only on strongly rhotic dialects, /r/-dissimilation can occur in non-rhotic dialects, in words that have two post-consonantal /r/s such as spectrogram. Dissimilation can also interact with other kinds of /r/-dropping. Myhill (1988:207) studies speakers who have variable deletion of postvocalic /r/, due to competing influence from the white dialect of Philadelphia, which is largely rhotic, and Black English Vernacular, which is largely non-rhotic. He finds that speakers are significantly more likely to drop an /r/ if there is another postvocalic /r/ in the same word, a difference of .60% versus .40%.

2.2 Data set I: previously reported cases

The phonological analysis of dissimilation presented here will be based on two datasets. The first, presented in Table 1, is a list of 115 reported cases of /r/- dropping that are likely to be due to dissimilation.
I have included words only if they meet several criteria, to exclude words which are likely to have lost one of their /r/s in earlier stages or different dialects of English. First, the non-dissimilated form must still be in current American usage. This excludes examples like Albu(r)querque, where the first /r/ is never pronounced or spelled today. Second, the dissimilated form must be attested in a dialect that is clearly rhotic. Third, the two forms must not differ by more than the presence of /r/. This excludes cases where dissimilation is accompanied by a change in vowel quality, such as ["kætrIdZ]/["kArtrIdZ] for cartridge (however, I have included words in which /@~/ dissimilates to a non-schwa vowel, such as peripheral). This criterion also excludes cases where additional segments besides /r/ are dropped, such as ["SIv@~i] for charivari or [sæsp@~Il@] for sarsaparilla. In such words, the loss of /r/ might be part of a more general ‘erosion’ of material, rather than specifically dissimilatory.

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Table 1: Previously reported cases of apparent /r/-dissimilation
(Broad) transcription²Source³

adve(r)sary afte(r)ward(s) ape(r)ture approp(r)iate A(r)thur barbitu(r)ate (St.) Be(r)nard (San) Berna(r)dino -b@~n@"dino

"ædv@-sEri "æft@-w@~dz "æp@tS@~ @"propi@t "AT@~

T1936, G2006 H1893, T1936, KK1953, Y1983 Y1983, G2006 K. Zuraw KK1953, Y1983 G2006, B. Vaux KK1953, C2005 KK1953

-bAr"bItSu@t b@"nArd

be(r)serk

b@"z@~k

G2006, B. Vaux R1988, G2006 G2006

bomba(r)dier cam(ar)aderie Cante(r)bury cate(r)cornered cate(r)pillar celeb(r)atory cereb(r)al palsy checke(r)board ci(r)cumference comfo(r)ter cont(r)oversy co(r)morant co(r)ner co(r)poration crib(r)iform deﬁb(r)illator do(r)mitory

-bAmb@"dir -k@"mAd@~i "kæn(t)@-b@~i "kæR@-korn@~d "kæR@-pIl@~ "sEl@b@-tori -sEr@b@l "pAlzi "tSEk@-bord s@"k2mfr@ns "k2mf@R@~ "kAnt@-v@~si "kom@~@nt -kon@~

KK1953, C2005 KK1953 KK1953, W1982, Y1983, R1988, M1994 G2006 J. Hall Y1983 KK1953, Y1983 H1893, KK1953, Y1983 G2006 G2006 H1893, S1947, KK1953, WS1998 H1893, S1947 L. Hall

-kop@"reIS@n "krIb@form di"fIbj@leIR@~ "dom@-tori "ist@n@~

G2006 B. Flanigan, Tresidder 1943:267 KK1953

easte(r)ner

²Many published sources do not include transcriptions, so these should be seen as approximate. ³Throughout the paper, sources are abbreviated as follows: S1837 Sherwood 1837:67-72;
H1893 Hempl 1893 (Southern Michigan); E1893 Emerson 1893; R1906 Rippmann 1906 (British); T1936 Thomas 1936 (upstate New York); T1942 Thomas 1942 (downstate New York); S1947 Swadesh 1947; T1947 Thomas 1947; KK1953 Kenyon & Knott 1953; W1982 Wells 1982; R1988 Randall 1988; W1993 Wilson 1993; M1994 Merriam-Webster 1994:436; A1996 American Heritage Book of English Usage; SW1997 Schilling-Estes & Wolfram 1997:65 (Ocracoke); WS1998 Wolfram & Schilling-Estes 1998; E1999 Elster 1999; C2005 Canepari 2005; G2006 barelybad.com/words1.htm#rsareus [an amateur linguist’s collection; some details have been clariﬁed through personal communication with the site’s author]; Y1983 Yamada 1983. In cases where individuals have reported examples not found in recent published sources, I have given their names.

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elde(r)berry ente(r)prise ent(r)epreneur fa(r)mer

"Eld@-bEri "En(t)@-praIz -Ant@pr@"nur "fAm@~

KK1953, M1994, C2005 H1893, E1893, KK1953, A1996 G2006 H1893

fa(r)ther

"fAD@~

H1893

fo(r)lorn

f@"lorn

T1936

fo(r)ward

"fow@~d

H1893

forwa(r)d

"forwId

Wolfram 1969:111

fo(r)mer(ly) forme(r)ly

"fom@~ "form@li

H1893, C. Moffatt H1893, KK1953, Hall 1942:64

f(r)aternity fu(r)ther

f@"t@~nIti "f@D@~

G2006 C2005

furthe(r)more gove(r)nor habe(r)dasher hambu(r)ger hype(r)baric imp(r)opriety inco(r)porate inf(r)astructure inte(r)fere

"f@~D@-mor "g2v@n@~ "hæb@-dæS@~ "hæmb@g@~ -haIp@"bArIk -Imp@"praI@Ri In"kop@~eIt "Inf@-str2ktS@~ -Int@"fir

KK1953, Y1983 T1936, KK1953, W1982, W1993, M1994 KK1953 B. Erickson, B. Vaux G2006 KK1953, Y1983, A1996 H1893 G2006 Y1983

interp(r)et

In"t@~p@t "nIk@-bAk@~ "læb@-tori "lIR@tS@~ "lIv@w@~st "m@d@~@~ "norD@n

KK1953, G2006 Y1983

Knicke(r)bocker lab(or)atory lit(er)ature live(r)wurst mu(r)derer northe(r)n

E1999 G2006, H. Schiffman, B. Vaux Y1983 C2005 KK1953

northe(r)ner no(r)thern(er) No(r)thrup North(r)up offe(r)tory

"norD@n@~ "noD@n@~ "noTr@p "norT@p "Af@-tori

H1893, T1936, KK1953, C2005 H1893, C2005 H1893 KK1953, Y1983 M1994

o(r)der

"od@~

C2005

o(r)dinary o(r)nery

"od@-neri "on@~i

A. Dinkin G2006

o(r)thography Otte(r)burn ove(r)ture

-o"TAgr@fi "AR@b@~n "ov@tS@~

H1893 KK1953, C2005 Y1983

paraphe(r)nalia

-pær@f@"neIlj@

KK1953, M1994, G2006

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pa(r)liamentary pa(r)lor

-pAl@"mEnt@~i "pAl@~

H1893 H1893

pa(r)ticular

p@"tIkj@l@~ p@"form@ns p@"fjum@~i p@"rIfi@l

H1893, T1936, KK1953, Y1983, G2006

pe(r)form(ance) pe(r)fumery periphe(r)al photog(r)apher

H1893, T1936, KK1953, Y1983 H1893, KK1953, Y1983 G2006, B. Vaux

f@"tAg@f@~

C2005

photomic(r)ography -foRomaI"kAgr@fi

Barrs 1962

po(r)trait

"potr@t

G2006

p(r)eliminary prep(ar)atory pre-p(r)ofessional p(r)ofessor

p@"lIm@nEri "prEp@-tori -prip@"fES@n@l p@"fEs@~

G2006 B. Vaux KK1953 T1936 , C2005, SW1997

p(r)oliferate p(r)oportion(al) p(r)oprietor propriet(r)ess Purmo(r)t

p@"lIf@~eIt p@"porS@n@l p@"praI@R@~ pr@"praI@t@s "p@~m@t

SW1997 (Ocracoke) KK1953, Y1983, B. Samuels KK1953 G2006 H1893

qua(r)ter

"kwoR@~

H1893, S1947, KK1953

recip(r)ocate repe(r)toire repe(r)tory

rI"sIp@keIt "rEp@-twAr "rEp@-tori

G2006 G2006, D. Kamholz Y1983

rep(r)esent rese(r)vation rese(r)voir resp(ir)atory reverb(er)atory rolle(r)coaster sec(r)etary

-rEp@"zEnt -rEz@"veIS@n "rEz@-vwAr "rEsp@-tori rI"v@~b@tori "rolikost@~ "sEk@-tEri

E1893, Y1983 Y1983 KK1953, C2005 Y1983, G2006, L. Hall KK1953 M. Covarrubius, Donahue 2006 E1893, T1947, KK1953, Y1983, C2005

southe(r)ner spect(r)ogram stenog(r)apher su(r)prise

"s2D@n@~

KK1953, C2005

"spEkt@-græm st@"nAg@f@~ s@"praIz

often heard by author T1947, C2005 H1893, T1936, KK1953, W1982, Y1983, M1994, G2006

su(r)veyor

s@"vej@~

KK1953, Y1983

Swa(r)thmore synch(r)otron temp(er)ature terrest(r)ial the(r)mometer tu(r)meric

"swAT-mor "sINk@-trAn "tEmp@tS@~ t@"rEstS@l T@"mAm@R@~ "tum@~Ik

KK1953, Goodman & Halvey 2006 M1994 T1936, Y1983, G2006 G2006 H1893, T1936, KK1953, W1982, Y1983, W1993, M1994, G2006 G2006, B. Vaux

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ve(r)nacular vet(er)inarian wa(rr)ior

v@"nækj@l@~ -vEt@"nEri@n "woj@~

KK1953, Y1983, M1994, G2006 G2006 G2006

Wate(r)bury weathe(r)board weathe(r)board weste(r)ner

"wAR@-b@~i "wED@-bord "wED@~-bod "wEst@n@~ "wInd@mir

KK1953, C2005 Pederson 1967 (Missouri) Pederson 1967 (Missouri) KK1953

Winde(r)mere

R1988

2.3 Data set II: an elicitation study of two dialects

To get a clearer picture of the extent of dissimilation in speciﬁc dialects, I conducted an elicitation study with speakers from two locations: Southern California (SoCal) and the Arkansas Ozarks (AR).

Procedure Words were elicited through a pseudo-psycholinguistic task, advertised as a “word identiﬁcation study”. Subjects were presented with sentences on a computer screen. In each sentence, one word (the target word) was missing some letters. A random number of stars appeared in the position from which the letters were missing.

(1) Sample elicitation sentences
When his wife left him, he went totally b****erk. (answer: berserk) When the patient suffered a heart attack, the doctors used a deﬁb***tor to restart his heart. (answer: deﬁbrillator)

Subjects read the sentences aloud, ﬁlling in the missing word. Their reading was audio-recorded on a Marantz PMD-660 solid state recorder with a Shure PG81 microphone. Instructions given to subjects implied that recording was merely a convenience so that they would not have to write down the answers.
In words which were being tested for dissimilation, the number of letters missing varied, but at a minimum included the r considered likely to drop, the unstressed vowel (if any) adjacent to that r, and at least one other consonant. This word-guessing procedure was designed to minimize spelling pronunciations, both by forcing subjects to pronounce the word without seeing the r in question and by preventing them from sounding out words they might not actually know.
Each subject was asked afterwards what they thought the experiment was studying and whether they had noticed anything that many of the words had in common;

7
5 (all SoCal) suggested pronunciation, and 2 noticed that a lot of words contained r. Both said they had noticed this only near the end of the experiment, so their data was included.

Materials In the SoCal experiment, subjects had to guess 300 words, a task that usually took around half an hour. There were 150 words that contained two /r/s and 40 that contained one /r/. The words with one /r/ served two purposes: they acted as a control to see whether subjects had non-dissimilatory /r/-dropping, and some were items which have been reported to undergo /r/-assimilation, discussed in section 4.2. The remaining 110 words contained no /r/s. Most of these items served purely as distractors, but 9 contained two /l/s in order to check for /l/-dissimilation, also discussed later.
The AR experiment had the same design, but included only 214 sentences, of which 110 contained two /r/s and 30 contained one /r/.
The ordering of words was largely random, except that the ﬁrst 15 items were all distractors, and three words which are known pronunciation shibboleths (February, library, librarian) were put at the very end, lest they alert subjects early on that the experiment was studying pronunciation.

Subjects Twenty-five SoCal speakers participated. All were native English speakers and had grown up in SoCal; 11 were female, 14 male. Twenty-one were between the ages of 19–27; the remaining 4 were between 36 and 53. Fourteen identified themselves as white, 3 as black, 4 as Hispanic, 3 as Asian, and 1 as a Pacific Islander. All had or were working toward 4-year degrees.
Fifteen Arkansas speakers participated. Fourteen were female, 1 male. Six speakers were between the ages of 18-29; 7 were between 33 and 44, and 2 were 75 and 79. All subjects were white, and were natives or long-term residents of the Ozarks who lived or worked in the town of Marshall (pop. 1,300), where recordings were made. Four subjects had no education beyond high school; 5 had or were working toward 2-year degrees, 6 had or were working toward 4-year degrees.

Scoring The recordings were initially scored by the author and another phoneticallytrained native English speaker. Scorers noted any cases where /r/ or /l/ was deleted or inserted. Productions were scored as invalid if a subject produced the wrong word, no word, or a signiﬁcantly non-standard form of a word (for example, with stress on the wrong syllable, or addition of sounds other than /r/ or /l/). Cases of discrepancy between the ﬁrst two scorers were resolved by a third scorer.
Although the experiment was only designed to examine the target words, occasionally subjects also had interesting pronunciations of words in the frame sen-

8tences that they read aloud, and I will refer to some of them below. Transcriptions of frame sentence words are based on the author’s scoring only; they were not double-checked by a second scorer.

Results Words containing only one /r/ had low rates of /r/-dropping: in SoCal, 5 / 926 productions, in AR, 0 / 401 productions. This conﬁrms that the subject group was highly rhotic, and that the experiment elicited careful speech in which little /r/-dropping would be expected to occur due to speech errors or fast-speech elision.
Table 2 shows the 96 words in which some speakers dropped an /r/ in the SoCal experiment. For each /r/, the table gives the number of productions with that /r/ dropped divided by the total number of valid productions. In some of the words, different subjects dropped different /r/s. In these cases, the word is listed twice, with the second occurrence starred. Parentheses indicate which /r/ was dropped. The table omits word from the experiment that had short-distance /r/-dissimilation (February, library, librarian) because they will be discussed in another paper. It also omits Worcestershire sauce, because subjects had around a dozen different pronunciations of this word. Also, a single instance of thunderstorm in which both /r/s dropped is ignored.

Table 2: SoCal: Words where subjects dropped one of two /r/s barbitu(r)ates paraphe(r)nalia su(r)prise bomba(r)dier tu(r)meric Trist(r)am Shandy 6 / 8 San Berna(r)dino be(r)serk
18 / 20 .90 Abe(r)crombie 20 / 24 .83 Aberc(r)ombie* 20 / 24 .83 p(r)ogressive 12 / 15 .80 p(r)oprietor
2 / 23 .09 2 / 23 .09 2 / 23 .09 2 / 23 .09 2 / 23 .09 2 / 24 .08 2 / 24 .08 2 / 24 .08 2 / 25 .08 2 / 25 .08 2 / 25 .08 2 / 25 .08 2 / 25 .08 2 / 25 .08 2 / 25 .08 2 / 25 .08 2 / 25 .08 1 /14 .07
11 / 14 .79 cinematog(r)apher
.75 brothe(r)ly
18 / 25 .72 inf(r)astructure 16 / 24 .67 kinde(r)garten d’U(r)bervilles cate(r)pillar rese(r)voir

3 / 6

.50 fo(r)ward

11 / 22 .50 afte(r)wards 12 / 24 .50 ente(r)prise

12 / 25 .48 f(r)aternities

forme(r)ly

repe(r)toire Cante(r)bury entrep(r)eneur southe(r)ner resp(ir)atory repe(r)tory

9 / 20

.45 rep(r)esents

10 / 23 .43 p(r)efer 10 / 25 .40 adve(r)tisers 9 / 24 9 / 25 5 / 15
.38 counte(r)feiters .36 co(r)duroy .33 pu(r)portedly

9cereb(r)al palsy deﬁb(r)illator prep(ar)atory Ruthe(r)ford gube(r)natorial adve(r)sary
7 / 21 6 / 18 8 / 25 7 / 22 4 / 13 7 / 23 7 / 25 7 / 25 7 / 25 7 / 25 4 / 15 6 / 25 5 / 22 5 / 25 4 / 23 4 / 25 4 / 25 4 / 25 4 / 25
.33 reperto(r)y* .33 Aspe(r)ger’s syndrome 1 /16 .06
1 /15 .07
.32 p(r)oliferation .32 imp(r)opriety* .31 wate(r)cress .30 repertoi(r)e* .28 libe(r)tarian .28 pe(r)turbed .28 co(r)porations .28 comfo(r)ter .27 the(r)mometer .24 int(r)amural .23 live(r)wurst .20 hambu(r)ger .17 celeb(r)atory .16 Lab(r)ador retriever .16 biog(r)apher .16 wiza(r)dry .16 cap(r)icorns .16 ba(r)bwire .14 f(r)ustrated .13 fo(r)mer .13 ag(r)iculture .13 lab(or)atory .12 lit(er)ature .12 pe(r)formance .12 qua(r)ter
1 /17 .06 1 /19 .05 1 /19 .05 1 /20 .05 1 /22 .05 1 /22 .05 1 /23 .04 1 /23 .04 1 /23 .04 1 /23 .04 1 /23 .04 1 /24 .04 1 / 24 .04 1 / 24 .04 1 / 24 .04 1 / 24 .04 1 / 24 .04 1 / 24 .04 1 / 25 .04 1 / 25 .04 1 / 25 .04 1 / 25 .04 1 / 25 .04 1 / 25 .04 1 / 25 .04 1 / 25 .04 1 / 25 .04 1 /25 .04 1 /25 .04 gove(r)nor northe(r)ner temp(er)ature furthe(r)more ape(r)ture frate(r)nize ve(r)nacular rolle(r)coasters⁴ove(r)ture easte(r)ners hermaph(r)odite weste(r)ner vet(er)inarian disp(r)oportionate 4 / 25 cam(ar)aderie fo(r)lorn photog(r)apher northe(r)n borde(r)line pa(r)ticular silve(r)ware prop(r)ietary alte(r)nator frankfu(r)ter periph(er)al
3 / 21 2 / 15 3 / 23 3 / 24 3 / 25 3 / 25 3 / 25 2 / 17 2 / 20 2 / 20 2 / 22
.12 pe(r)verted .10 f(r)ustration .10 p(r)ocrastinate .09 maste(r)card

There were also a number of words containing two /r/s in which no /r/-dropping occurred; these are given below.

⁴Although the pronunciation ["roli-kost@~z] has been previously reported, all the SoCal subjects who dissimilated said ["rol@-kost@~z].

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(2) 51 words with two /r/s and no instances of /r/-dropping (SoCal): abracadabra arbitration arthur barbershop bernards bumperstickers cheeseburger checkerboard christopher circumference controversy corner counterpart energizer entertainers evergreen extra-terrestrial extrovert farther ﬁngerprints furniture gingerbread hovercraft inappropriate interfere intermarry intermediary interpret knickerbockers migratory ordinary overdraft overboard overturned persevered pre-professional professor propeller repercussions reservation Schwarzenegger secretary supervisor surveyors survivors thunderbird thunderstorm trajectory waterboarding waterfront waterproof