This book provides an insight into the patterns of varia- tion and change of rhotics in different languages and from a variety of perspectives. It sheds light on the phonetics, the phonology, the sociolinguistics and the acquisition of /r/-sounds in languages as diverse as Dutch, English, Rhotics. French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Malayalam, Roma- nian, Saraiki, Slovak, Tyrolean and Washili Shingazidja, thus contributing to the discussion on the unity and uniqueness of this group of sounds. New Data Rhotics. New Data and Perspectives Rhotics. Data New Perspectives and and Perspectives Edited by Lorenzo Spreafico Alessandro Vietti Spreafico / Vietti (eds.) / Vietti Spreafico 36,00 Euro www.unibz.it/universitypress Scripta Ladina Brixinensia dé fora da / Hrsg. / a cura di Paul Videsott Consei scientifich / Wissenschaftliches Komitee / Comitato scientifico Guntram Plangg (Innsbruck) Hans Goebl (Salzburg) Vol. I Rhotics. New Data and Perspectives Edited by Lorenzo Spreafico Alessandro Vietti Design: DOC.bz Printing: Dipdruck, Bruneck-Brunico © 2013 by Bozen-Bolzano University Press Free University of Bozen-Bolzano All rights reserved 1st edition www.unibz.it/universitypress ISBN 978-88-6046-055-4 E-ISBN 978-88-6046-102-5 This work—excluding the cover and the quotations—is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Contents I. Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. 7 II. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 9 Part I - Language acquisition and bilingualism On the Place of Rhotics: A case study on the acquisition of French // Marijn van ’t Veer ................................................................................................................... 23 Acquisition of English [] by adult Pakistani learners Nasir A. Syed .......................................................................................................................... 41 On rhotics in a bilingual community: A preliminary UTI research Lorenzo Spreafico & Alessandro Vietti ............................................................................. 57 Part II - Phonetics and phonology Articulatory coordination in obstruent-sonorant clusters and syllabic consonants: Data and modelling Philip Hoole, Marianne Pouplier, Štefan Benˇusˇ & Lasse Bombien ........................... 81 Articulating five liquids: A single speaker ultrasound study of Malayalam James M. Scobbie, Reenu Punnoose & Ghada Khattab ............................................. 99 The many faces of /r/ Mary Baltazani & Katerina Nicolaidis ................................................................................ 125 Another look at the structure of [ɾ]: Constricted intervals and vocalic elements Carmen-Florina Savu ............................................................................................................ 145 New insights into American English V+/r/ sequences María Riera & Joaquín Romero ........................................................................................... 159 /r/ in Washili Shingazidja Cédric Patin ............................................................................................................................ 173 Prosodic factors in the adaptation of Hebrew rhotics in loanwords from English Evan-Gary Cohen .................................................................................................................. 191 Part III - Language variation and change A preliminary contribution to the study of phonetic variation of /r/ in Italian and Italo-Romance Antonio Romano .................................................................................................................... 209 The spreading of uvular [ʀ] in Flanders Hans Van de Velde, Evie Tops & Roeland van Hout ..................................................... 227 Instability of the [r] ~ [ʀ] alternation in Montreal French: An exploration of stylistic conditioning in a sound change in progress Gillian Sankoff & Hélène Blondeau .................................................................................. 249 List of contributors ................................................................................................................ 267 Acknowledgments This volume contains a collection of papers presented at the conference ‘r-atics-3. Phonetics, phonology, sociolinguistics and typology of rhotics, which was held at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (FUB) on December 2nd and 3rd in 2011. The idea for the conference was to continue the tradition established at previ- ous ‘r-atics meetings in Nijmegen (2000) and Bruxelles (2002) providing a fo- rum for the presentation and discussion of current research on rhotics. In this respect, we would like to acknowledge Didier Demolin, Roeland van Hout and Hans Van de Velde for allowing us to pick up the title and the concept of the ‘r-atics workshops. The entire process of peer-reviewing for each paper was only possible thanks to an external group of anonymous referees who made numerous valuable sug- gestions, many of which have been incorporated into the final version of the book. We are deeply grateful to the Language Study Unit of the FUB, which funded the conference as well as the publication of this book. We would also like to thank the Language Study Unit team for their outstanding support in organi- zing the conference and the bu,press staff for their assistance in preparing this book. 7 Introduction Alessandro Vietti & Lorenzo Spreafico Preamble Writing an introduction to a ‘new’ book on rhotics appears quite an awkward task, especially if one harbours hopes to present new data and to envisage perspectives on the topic, as the subtitle to the volume suggests. Is there really anything new about rhotics? Even from a quick overview of the contributions collected, the answer is definitely positive. Although phoneticians, above all, have made great progress in understanding the articulatory, acoustic and perceptual characteristics of rhotics and their exceptional variation (Recasens & Espinosa 2007; Engstrand et al. 2007; Proctor 2009; Lawson et al. 2011), the /r/ family still remains an anomalous case as a class of sounds for many well-known reasons: a) The puzzling nature of their honologicalp representation (Wiese 2011); b) The unusually wide range of variants (not infrequently within the very same phonological system); c) The tendency to take no flexible social meanings. The papers collected in this book thus clearly represent a step further towards a better understanding of rhotics in at least two ways: firstly, new data are collected on /r/ in many non-European languages, some of them coming from poorly (or not at all) described languages; secondly, different disciplinary standpoints are taken up in order to capture the kaleidoscopic /r/ phenomenology. The primary goal of having descriptions of many languages is to document how /r/ is articulated and varies within distinct phonological systems. A twofold secondary aim is (a) to establish an empirical base for cross-linguistic and typological comparisons (b) which in turn could be used as a benchmark to take stock of theories or generalizations of human spoken communication (language sound systems). As a consequence, this book brings together articles that 9 Alessandro Vietti & Lorenzo Spreafico examine various aspects of rhotics in fifteen languages (or language varieties), namely: -- Saraiki (Indo-Aryan language spoken in South Punjabi; in Syed); -- Malayalam (Dravidian language spoken in southern India; in Scobbie et al.); -- Washili Shingazidja (Bantu language; in Patin); -- Modern Hebrew (Cohen); -- Greek (Baltazani & Nicolaidis); -- British English (Syed) and American English (Rieira & Romero); -- Dutch (Van de Velde et al.); -- German (Hoole et al.) and Tyrolean (South Bavarian German dialect, Spreafico & Vietti); -- Slovak (Hoole et al.); -- Romanian (Savu); -- Canadian French (van ’t Veer; Sankoff & Blondeau) and French (Hoole et al.); -- Italian (Spreafico & Vietti; Romano). On the other hand, /r/ and related phenomena are captured under different theoretical and methodological perspectives, following the tradition of previous ‘r-atics workshops. Mechanisms and strategies of first (Syed) and second (van ’t Veer) language acquisition, ultrasound-based comparison in bilinguals (Spreafico & Vietti), acoustic (Savu) and kinematic analysis of articulation of /r/ (Scobbie et al.; Hoole et al.), phonological interpretation of allophonic variation (Patin) or phonological processes (Cohen), socio-geographical representation of language variation under a diachronic angle (Van de Velde et al.; Sankoff & Blondeau; Romano), all taken together depict an enlightening and multifaceted image of r-sounds. In the next section, the contributions are grouped according to the main perspective or scientific framework. The most insightful general questions emerging from the analysis are also reported and emphasized, in order to illustrate the range of transversal issues connecting papers to each other as well as connecting them all to less superficial issues related to the interaction between phonetics and phonology. 2. Language acquisition and bilingualism The three contributions that fall within the broad framework of (first and second) language acquisition and bilingualism are from Van ’t Veer; Syed and Spreafico & Vietti.