phonology - How is the pronunciation of r before th? Specific case: "north"


Some consonants such as n,d,t are usually alveolar in English, except that they are replaced by dentals when they are before dental fricatives (th): tenth, said this, in the….


What about "r" before "th"?



  • Arthur: BrE /É‘:θəʳ/, AmE /É‘:rθɚ/

  • north: /nÉ”:θ/, AmE /nÉ”:rθ/ ; northern


My conjectures are:



  • a or o are lowered in the mouth so that we have /É‘/ or /É”/.

  • the mouth becomes less tensed

  • the r is very loose

  • n in north becomes dental!



Answer



The point of constriction in retroflex consonants per se tends to be alveolar/postalveolar. I'm afraid I don't know of any actual data off hand, but I dare say it would not be surprising to find that the point of articulation of /r/ is very slightly fronted before dental consonants (but still within the alveolar region).


On the other hand, while I guess physiologically possible, I think it would be hugely unusual for the articulation of a retroflex to be so far fronted as to warrant being called "dental". On the other hand, I believe some languages such as Hindi-Urdu have retroflex and dental /r/ sounds contrasting with one antoher.


(And I would be very keen to stand corrected if anybody knows otherwise.)


P.S. You might want to listen to how speakers pronounce "for the" in the sample recordings in the Speech Accent Archive (the link is to one speaker, but several have been recorded).


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