ENGLISH PHONOLOGY. 393 



English. The lingucil or trilled r is properly used when this letter 

 begins a word, c. g., round, rattle — when it is one of two initial con- 

 sonants, e. g., proud, stream, and when it is between two vowels, as in 

 spirit, orange, etc. In general this rough r is more distinctly trilled 

 by Englishmen than by Americans, and their vibration is formed more 

 anteriorly with a touch of the tip of the tongue against the hard 

 palate. This vibration is very brief except in the most formal ora- 

 torical efforts, and it should be simply a double contact and never a 

 distinct roll as given by the Scotch and Irish. R final or before a 

 consonant, as in bar, born, has a guttural vibration in American utter- 

 ance, but it is so smooth in English usage that the question has been 

 raised by some orthoepists whether it has any real value in these words 

 or after a long vowel in the same syllable as in here, fire, our, and in 

 many similar words. Whatever sound the obscure r may have in these 

 instances is by Englishmen joined immediately to the preceding vowel 

 or diphthong, but most Americans interpose between the previous vowel 

 and the r a sj^ecies of neutral vowel like xc in urge, and slightly stiffen- 

 ing the tongue and raising the tip a little toward the dental arch they 

 produce not a true dental r but a peculiar guttural r, Avhich is in general 

 use in the United States, except among some New Englanders and 

 Southerners whose usage accords more exactly with the native English 

 sound. 



The writer's views of the English varieties of the letter r were 

 published some years ago in England,* and a satisfactory physiologi- 

 cal explanation of the soft r was then offered. In certain positions r 

 has such slight value that some orthoepists have regarded ah and are, 

 for example, as identical in sound, while others, not admitting this 

 view, have given no anatomical distinctions or rational theory as to 

 this r. The original view advanced and still held by the writer is that 

 the essential organic formation of this soft r is laryngeal, and consists 

 in the tension and approximation of the true vocal ligaments so as to 

 produce a friction-sound of the escaping breath. The breath thus 

 roughened in its passage through the rima glottidis is the true basis 

 of this r, which in some speakers receives a little additional value 

 from slight pharyngeal constriction. Various analogies support this 

 view of the organic nature of soft r, for several rough sounds are pro- 

 duced by the contraction of the " corda3 vocales" to a degree not 

 productive of vocalization. The " spiritus asper " of the Greeks was 

 thus produced. The fricative quality of our own h has a similar 

 origin, and there is an obscure Teutonic r best heard among the 

 Saxons having a like organic formation. 



In July, 1878, the Avriter gave a written description of the English 

 uvular and labial r's. The former is the basis of what is popularly 

 known in England as the Northumberland burr, and it corresponds to 

 the uvular r of the Germans, and to the r " grasseye " of the French. 



* Professor Plumptre's, " King's College Lectures on Elocution," London, 1881. 



