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From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: German and French uvular 'r'
Message-ID: <CzGv8p.HDy@inter.NL.net>
Organization: NLnet
References: <3ac3ts$oi1@mother.usf.edu> <CzDuvI.G6M@inter.NL.net> <3aeq63$7f0@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> <CzFDzL.D05@spss.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 14:07:37 GMT
Lines: 35

In article <CzFDzL.D05@spss.com>, Mark Rosenfelder <markrose@spss.com> wrote:
>In article <3aeq63$7f0@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu>,
>Hung Jung Lu <hlu@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>>But you forgot to explain what the Portugues r is.
>>Could anyone describe it?
>>
>>Anyhow, I got to know an Arab-Brasilian and his name is
>>S. Hussein (He refuses to tell anyone what the S. means...
>>and actually once he did have trouble with his visa work
>>to the USA, around the time of the Gulf war. He does have
>>another first name, but I can't remember now.) One of his
>>complains is that in Brazil a lot of people spell his
>>lastname as Russein, a mistake that wouldn't occur in
>>most other languages.
>
>I'm told that an initial r- in the carioca accent is pronounced [h],
>and a medial -r- as [R*] (that is, like a French r).  Thus "Rio de Janeiro"
>is pronounced [hiu dZi ZaneR*u].  Other parts of Brazil have different
>r's; in Sao Paulo a trilled r is common.
>
>Now, I wonder if someone could explain to me the difference between an
>English and a (Midwestern) American r?  I learned most of my phonetics from
>Catford's book, and he omits to explain an English r.  Given the description
>as an alveolar approximant, is it like an American r, but with the tongue
>farther forward in the mouth, but not so far forward that one pronounces
>a flap (a la Spanish)?

I think the American r tends more towars a *retroflex* approximant,
whereas the English one is an alveolar approximant.  (There is also the [w]
pronunciation, as in "Bwitish").

-- 
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 
