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Linguistics

Notes 6.3 The Consonant r

This consonant is important in that considerable differences in its articulation and its distribution are
found in different accents of English. As far as the articulation of the sound is concerned, there is
really only one pronunciation that can be recommended to the foreign learner, and that is what is
called a post-alveolar approximant. An approximant, as a type of consonant, is rather difficult to
describe; informally, we can say that it is an articulation in which the articulators approach each
other but do not get sufficiently close to each other to produce a “complete” consonant such as a
plosive, nasal or fricative. The difficulty with this explanation is that 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 “curling-back” 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:
1. ‘red’ red ‘ arrive’ rawv ‘hearing’ hw rwŋ
e
e
In these words r is followed by a vowel. But in the following words there is no r in the
pronunciation:
2. ‘car’ kY+ 'ever’ ev e ‘here’ hw e
3. ‘hard’ hfY+d ‘verse’ v3+s ‘cares’ ke z
e
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.
6.4 The Consonants j and w

These are the consonants found at the beginning of words such as ‘yet’ and ‘wet’. They are known as
approximants. The most important thing to remember about these phonemes is that they are
phonetically like vowels but phonologically like consonants (in earlier works on phonology they
were known as “semivowels”). From the phonetic point of view the articulation of j is practically the
same as that of a front close vowel such as [i], but is very short. In the same way w is closely similar
to [u]. If you make the initial sound of’yet’ or ‘wet’ very long, you will be able to hear this. But despite
this vowel-like character, we use them like consonants. For example, they only occur before vowel

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