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Re: English IPA transcription of "er" vs "rer"

Subject: Re: English IPA transcription of "er" vs "rer"
From: Mike Wright
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 16:21:05 -0500
Newsgroups: sci.lang, alt.english.usage, alt.usage.english
Bart Mathias wrote:

jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Michael wrote:

Hello,

I had to come up with an IPA transcription for the word "furor" today
(leaving the second syllable unstressed, without an "oh" sound), and
I'm a bit confused as to what it should be. After all, the "-or" is
clearly the alveolar approximant (upside down "r" in IPA), but what
about the preceding "r"? It doesn't make any sense to write "fjurr"
with two r's.

You've run into the reason that a lot of non-Americans say Pres. Bush
talks about "tairists".  And I do too, or pretty close.  You should
hear me on "rural" or "caterer".  I think what I do when I'm careful is
keep my tongue and lips in the same position but lower my jaw a bit and
then bring it back.  (That is, my jaw goes high-low-high.)  Sorry, I
don't know whether there's IPA for that.

I had a student from Baltimore once who said "murderer" in a way that sounded like "murder" to me.

Until I saw Nathan Sanders' reply to this query, I had always vaguely assumed that a "rer" would result from the same sort of relaxation and re-exertion (probably not the proper phonetics term) that made "ye" /yIy/ and "woo" /wUw/ possible, but sure enough I have very clear lip movement on the second "r" of "murderer," none on the first or last, and none on either "r" of "murder," which seems to mean there is more involved in "murder" than putting an "-er" on "murder."

I must say I'm a bit dismayed.

Hey, Bart!

I can tell that my "murder" and "murderer" are different, but I'm sure having a hard time pinning down just what's going on in there. I've said it over and over until my throat's sore.

The "erer" of "murderer" certainly takes longer than the "er" of "murder". There seems to be some tightening of the throat between "murder-" and "-er", but not a full abrupt glottal stop.

At other times, it seems to come out like "murder-rer". It's not the same as my other, more casual pronunciation, but it doesn't feel wrong, either.

I'd better stop saying for three days to let my pronunciation drift back to normal, whatever that may have been. Besides, I don't want to stress my voice--I have a Bluegrass jam session tonight.

--
Mike Wright
http://www.raccoonbend.com

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