Morton

Adam   Wednesday, December 08, 2004, 12:48 GMT
How do you pronounce the name 'Morton' where you are from(I would guess that if you know the name you are a native english speaker)? I don't know how to describe exactly how I pronounce it. I know that for me the 't' is silent but it doesn't sound like moron, maybe almost like mor'en.
D   Wednesday, December 08, 2004, 13:07 GMT
The greater American accent would prounounce every letter.
The first 'o' would be pronounce as in 'more' while the second
'o' could be prounounced either as a schwa or as in 'tin'. The 't'
would be attached to the first syllable.
Jim   Thursday, December 09, 2004, 03:22 GMT
/mo:t.n/
Brennus   Saturday, December 11, 2004, 07:33 GMT
/mor:t.n / for me . Intervocalic r's are pronounced in most of the United States except for parts of the east coast (Boston, New York, Charleston, Atlanta?). The theory is that this is because these places had closer commercial ties to England at the time of the American Revolution than the rest of the country.

Spanish speakers often find the sounds of English very difficult to pronounce as do French and Celtic speakers. I've worked with Mexicans, for instance, who would pronounce the name as MoR:tón with a trilled r and a long o in the second syllable.
Jim   Monday, December 13, 2004, 02:44 GMT
Brennus,

You'd mean "non-prevocalic" rather than "intervocalic", wouldn't you?
Brennus   Monday, December 13, 2004, 18:57 GMT

Dear Jim,

Re: Non pre-vocalic: You're probably right. My bad. I have never read what an r between a vowel and a consonant is called. I know that linguists call r's that are added as in awrful (awful) and r idear (idear) something like "inclusive" r's and r's that are absent as in p@:t (part) weath@ (weather) "missing r" but suprisingly, there really isn't much litterature on the subject.

I've also read studies which say that British speakers are not even aware of the fact that they don't pronounce r's in words like "part, idea, and weather". The same is probably equally true for American New Englanders. How can there be much litterature or discussion about it when people are'nt even concious of this fact?
Easterner   Sunday, December 19, 2004, 00:11 GMT
The exact term for "r" added is "intrusive r", and the reverse in non-rhotic dialect is "r-dropping". The latter depends on the context, of course the "r" at the end of words is pronounced when the next word starts with a vowel, but non-rhotic speakers may also perceive words like "part" and "pot" as minimal pairs.
Brennus   Sunday, December 19, 2004, 07:05 GMT

Thanks. Easterner. Yes, "intrusive r" is the term I was looking for.