Voiced post-alveolar approximant

other variations:
● voiced fricative (after /d/): drive / laundry
● voiceless fricative (after fortis plosives): prize / true / cry
● dental alveolar (after /θ/): three

This consonant is important in that considerable differences in its articulation and its
distribution are found in different accents of English.
An approximant, as a type of consonant, is rather difficult to describe, informally, it can be
stated that it is an articulation in which the articulators approach each other but do not get
sufficiently close to each to produce a complete consonant such as a plosive, nasal or
fricative.

Articulators are always in some positional relationship with each other, and any vowel
articulation could also be classed as an approximant - but the term “approximant” is usually
used only for consonants.

The important thing about the articulation of r is that the tip of the tongue approaches the
alveolar area in approximately the way it would for a t or d, but never actually makes contact
with any part of the roof of the mouth. You should be able to make a long r sound and feel
that no part of the tongue is in contact with the roof of the mouth at any time. This is, of
course, very different from the “r-sounds'' of many other languages where some kind of
tongue-palate contact is made. The tongue is in fact usually slightly curled backwards with
the tip raised; consonants with this tongue shape are usually called retroflex. If you
pronounce an alternating sequence of d and r (drdrdrdrdr) while looking in a mirror you
should be able to see more of the underside of the tongue in the r than in the d, where the
tongue tip is not raised and the tongue is not curled back. The “curlingback” process usually
carries the tip of the tongue to a position slightly further back in the mouth than that for
alveolar consonants such as t, d, which is why this approximant is called “post-alveolar”. A
rather different r sound is found at the beginning of a syllable if it is preceded by p, t, k; it is
then voiceless and fricative. This pronunciation is found in words such as ‘press’, ‘tress’,
‘cress’.

One final characteristic of the articulation of r is that it is usual for the lips to be slightly
rounded; learners should do this but should be careful not to exaggerate it. If the lip-rounding
is too strong the consonant will sound too much like w, which is the sound that most English
children produce until they have learned to pronounce r in the adult way.

The distributional peculiarity of r in the BBC accent is very easy to state: this phoneme only
occurs before vowels. No one has any difficulty in remembering this rule, but foreign learners
(most of whom, quite reasonably, expect that if there is a letter ‘r’ in the spelling then r
should be pronounced) find it difficult to apply the rule to their own pronunciation.

There is no problem with words like the following:

i) ‘red’ red ‘arrive’ oral v ‘hearing’ hlornj

In these words r is followed by a vowel. But in the following words there is no r in the
pronunciation:

ii) ‘car’ ka: ‘ever’ eva ‘here’ hia iii) ‘hard’ ha:d ‘verse’ v3is ‘cares’ kcaz

Many accents of English do pronounce r in words like those of (ii) and (iii) (e.g. most
American, Scots and West of England accents). Those accents which have r in final position
(before a pause) and before a consonant are called rhotic accents, while accents in which r
only occurs before vowels (such as BBC) are called non-rhotic.

➔
Post-alveolar approximant lrl
(1) Examples
word-initial-reed, rag, raw, rude, rut, road, royal, rear
word-medial, intervocalic-mirror, very, arrow, sorry, hurry, furry, arrive,
diary, dowry, dairy, eery, fury
word-final (Ir/-link with following word beginning with a vowel far away, poor old
man, once and for all, here at last, there are two.

In consonantal clusters fully devoiced [r] following accented voiceless plosive:

-price, proud, tree,
try, cream, crow; expression, surprise, attract, extremely, decree

somewhat devoiced [r] following voiceless fricative, unaccented voiceless

plosive, or accented voiceless plosive preceded by Isl in the same syllable fry,
afraid, throw, thrive, shrink, shrug; apron, mattress, nitrate, buckram,
cockroach; sprint, sprat, street, strain, scream, scrape, history /'hrstri/.
fully voiced [J] following voiced consonant in the same syllable (fricative
[-I] after Idl)-brief, bright, dress, dry, dream, address, tawdry, grey, grow;
umbrella, hungry; sovereign, general
words containing more than one Ir/-brewery /'bru;:lri/, library (I'larbr;:lri/,
/Tarbri or /Tarbri/), retrograde, rarer, treasury, gregarious, procrastinate
Compare
/r/, /i/-raft, laughed; rush, lush; red, led; right, light; pirate, pilot; sherry,
Shelley; two rocks, two locks; crash, clash; pray, play; fry, fly; grew, glue;
bright, blight
/tr/,/Idr/-trip, drip; trench, drench; tram, dram; trunk, drunk; troop, droop;
try, dry.
Itr/, If/-trees, cheese; trip, chip; trap, chap; true, chew; train, chain.
Idr/, /c13/-drill, gill (liquid measure); dressed, jest; draw, jaw; drew, Jew;
dram, jam; drear, jeer; Drury, jury.

(2) Description
(a) Articulatory and distributional features-The most common allophone
ofGB Irl is a voiced post-alveolar approximant [J]. The soft palate being
raised and the nasal resonator shut off, the tip of the tongue is held in
a position near to, but not touching, the rear part of the upper teeth ridge;
the back rims of the tongue are touching the upper molars; the central
part of the tongue is lowered, with a general contraction of the tongue,
so that the effect of the tongue position is one of hollowing and slight
retroflexion of the tip (Fig. 50). (See videos 2.4, 4.2.) The airstream is thus
allowed to escape freely, without friction, over the central part of the
tongue. The lip position is determined largely by that of the following
vowel, e.g. reach with neutral to spread lips, root with rounded lips. This
allophone of the OB phoneme is, therefore, phonetically vowel-like, but,
having a non-central situation in the syllable, it functions as a consonant.
OB Irl usually occurs before a vowel, the above description being applicable to
the realisations: syllable-initially before a vowel; following a voiced consonant
(except Id/), either in a syllable-initial cluster or at word or syllable boundaries;
word-final Irl linking with an initial vowel in the following word (see §12.4.7).
The limited distribution applies also to other non-rhotic accents. (See under (3)
below.)
When Idl precedes Ir/, the allophone of Irl is fricative, the Idl closure being
released slowly enough to produce friction, e.g. in drive, tawdry and, in rapid
speech, at syllable or word boundaries, e.g. headrest, bedroom, wide road. (See
video 3.2.)
A completely devoiced fricative [J] may be heard following accented Ip,t,k/,
e.g. price, try, cream, oppress, attract, across. A partially devoiced variety of
Irl occurs: when Irl follows an unaccented voiceless plosive initial in a syllable
and, in rapid speech, at syllable boundaries, e.g. upright, apron, paltry, nitrate,
beetroot, cockroach, acrobat (though in these positions the homorganic sequence
I-tr-I will involve more devoicing than I-pr-I and I-kr-/); in the syllable-initial
sequences Ispr-,str-,skr-I, e.g. spring, string, scream; and after other voiceless
consonants in accented syllables, e.g. fry, thrive, shrink. Slight devoicing may
also occur, in rapid speech, following these latter voiceless fricatives, when they
are in unaccented positions, e.g. belfry, saffron, necessary /'nes~sri/, surfriding,
birthright, horse race, cockroach, mushroom.
In COB, the approximant variety [J] can be replaced by an alveolar tap [c]
in intervocalic positions, e.g. very, sorry, marry, Mary, forever, following 18,0/,
e.g. three, forthright, with respect, and also, with some speakers, after other
consonants, especially Ib,g/, e.g. bright, grow. In the case of intervocalic [cl, a
single tap is made by the tip of the tongue on the alveolar ridge, the side rims
usually making a light contact with the upper molars. The articulation of [c]
differs from that of Idl in that the contact for [c] is of shorter duration and less
complete than that of Id/, the central hollowing of the tongue typical of [c] being
distinctive; carry with [c] and caddie with Idl are, therefore, phonetically distinct.
In the case of [c] following 18,0/, a tap is made by the tongue-tip on the teeth
ridge as the tongue is withdrawn from its dental position; again, the contact
is of very brief duration and some tongue hollowing is present. A lingual trill
(or roll) [r] may also be heard among OB speakers, but usually only in highly
stylised speech, e.g. in declamatory verse-speaking.

In GB, the degree of labialisation varies considerably. Although for perhaps

the majority of GB speakers the lip position of Irl is determined by that of the
following vowel, some speakers labialise Irl whatever the following vowel. In
some extreme cases, lip-rounding is accompanied by no articulation of the forward
part of the tongue, so that Irl is replaced by Iwl and homophones of the type
wed, red, are produced. Alternatively a labiodental approximant [D]may be heard
as a realisation of Irl or even for both Irl and Iw/. Pronunciations of this sort
were a fashionable affectation in the nineteenth and early twentieth century; and
can still be heard as such from some elderly people educated at major public
schools. More recently there are reports that the [D] is spreading more widely,
essentially in a similar way to t-glottaling (lt/-P)) and th-fronting (l8,ö/-[f,v)),
i.e. starting out from basilectal London, moving into the south-east and then
further afield (e.g. Derby, Milton Keynes, Middlesborough)." At the same time
[D] for Irl is weIl known as a feature of early child language and has often been
regarded as a speech defect in adults.
The I<!I in the sequence of I<!rl is frequently reduced in rapid speech by the elision
of the schwa. This may leave non-syllabic Irl pre-vocalically or it may result in
a syllabic Ir/. Both are possible in conference, misery, camera, reverie, malingerer,
binary, commentary, memory, victory. The elision of both Ireland I<!I in library has
similar effects. A similar elision of I<!I can take place in the sequence Ir<!1 and this
may result in the introduction of pre-consonantal zr/ into GB, e.g. the elision of I<!I in
parrot, barrel may leave syllabic or non-syllabic Irl (see further under §1O.8(1)(b)).

(b) Acoustic Features''>:The voiced postalveolar approximant gIrl has a formant

structure like vowels but, like the nasals and 11/, this structure is only
weakly apparent. Fl is between 120 and 600 Hz, the lower the frequency
the greater the perceived impression of lip-rounding; F2 is between 700
and 1,200 Hz; F3 is notable by being very close to F2. However, since
the steady-state formants are likely to be very weak, Irl is more easily
identifiable on spectrograms by its steeply rising transitions (for Fl, F2,
F3 and F4) to a following vowel. See spectrograms in Figure 44.
226 The sounds of English
(3) Regional variants-A trill, i.e. a rapid succession of taps by the tip of the
tongue on the alveolar ridge, is often considered typical of some Scottish
types of English, though a single tap or the approximant [J] are more
common. A tap is also the regular realisation of Irl in Liverpool and
Newcastle.
A uvular articulation, either a trill [R] or a fricative [K], may be heard in rural
areas in the extreme north-east ofEngland and also among some Lowland Scottish
speakers and as a defective substitution for [J].
In some dialects the degree ofretroflexion ofthe tongue for [J] may be greater
 than in GB-[.(I, e.g. in the speech of the south-west of England and some
American English. The retroflexion of the tongue may anticipate the consonant
and colour the preceding vowel articulation; such 'r-coloured' vowels may occur
in this type of speech in such words as bird, farm, lord.
A perceptual effect similar to retroflexion is often achieved by a bunching of
the front and central parts ofthe tongue towards the roof ofthe mouth." In this
type of articulation the tip of the tongue is not retroflexed but approaches the
base of the teeth. This was first reported in American English but has also been
shown to be used in certain environments in GB, e.g. before front vowels as in
dream, curious. (See video 5.11.)
Irl differs in various types of English not only in its phonetic realisation but
also in its distribution. Many dialects of English, including General American,
most types ofIrish English, Standard Scottish English and much of the rural south
and south-west of England, retain the earlier post-vocalic (both pre-consonantal
and pre-pausal) usage ofIr/, distinguishing between such GB homophones as pour,
paw; court, caught (SSE can also have distinct vowels before Ir/, e.g. in horse
and hoarsey." The quality ofthe post-vocalic Irl used will correspond to the types
given above according to the region. A retroflexed continuant, of somewhat greater
duration than the pre- or post-vocalic form, may also have syllabic function, e.g.
in water,father, ladder,paper [wottr, 'fa:a.)", 'Iadr, 'perpr]. For the use ofwordfinal,

In RP and other non-rhotic accents, a word in isolation never ends in /r/. But in connected
speech r may be pronounced in some cases if the next word begins with a vowel sound.

This typically happens with a word that ends in one of the following vowels:

ə, a:, :ɔ, 3:, Iə, ʊə

Usually, as in the cases just mentioned, the spelling includes r. The added r sound is then
known as linking r. It corresponds to a historical r, now lost before a consonant or pause. (in
rhotic accents, such as german, this r is still always present, and is therefore not linking)
In RP, however, as in other non-rhotic accents, the sound r is frequently added even if there is
no letter rin the spelling. This intrusive r does not correspond to historical r, and there is no
corresponding r in GA.

The linking sound in English is an extra sound that we use between two words when we are
connecting these two words together. If we pronounce the two words separately, we do not
use the r sound between them but if we pronounce them together we say an r between the
words as it makes the words easier to pronounce quickly.
 1. According to articulation is the /r/ sound only classified as a voiced post-alveolar
approximant?
FALSE

2. Is the linking r a sound that we elide between two words when we are connecting
these two words together.

FALSE

3. Apart from voiced fricative (after /d/) like in, drive and laundry, is there any other /r/
variation?

Yes, voiceless fricative (after fortis plosives): prize / true / cry and dental alveolar (after /θ/):
three

4. Why is the /r/ sound classified as an approximant?

Because, when we pronounce /r/ the tip of the tongue approaches the alveolar area in
approximately the way it would for a t or d, but never actually makes contact with any part of
the roof of the mouth.

5. How would you explain linking r?

The linking sound in English is an extra sound that we use between two words when we are
connecting these two words together.

6. Could you provide an example of r-liaison?

This typically happens with a word that ends in one of the following vowels:

ə, a:, :ɔ, 3:, Iə, ʊə

7. Why is it important to avoid exaggerating the lips to be slightly rounded?

Because if the lip-rounding is too strong the consonant will sound too much like w

8. Can you differentiate the r sound according to the place and manner of articulation?

Post alveolar refers to the place of articulation and the manner of articulation is frictionless
and continuant.