Pre-R Dentalisation in northern England

Abstract

Dental pronunciation of alveolar consonants before /r/ and /ər/ is a well-known feature of traditional varieties of Irish English. This Pre-R Dentalisation (PreRD) has a number of intriguing linguistic properties, in particular an associated /r/- Realisation Effect and a Morpheme Boundary Constraint . It is less well known that PreRD is (or perhaps was) also a feature of a number of English varieties outside Ireland, particularly in traditional northern English dialects. This article analyses dialect data from northern England in order to determine the nature of PreRD there and its historical relations with the phenomenon in Irish English. In addition, it explores the phonological complexities of PreRD in light of the loss of rhoticity in traditional northern English dialects.