Homophones in non-rhotic accents

Hi everyone,

I've got a question about non-rhotic accents. There are words in English which are differentiated only by the presence of a rhotic vowel (or a consonant).

e.g. farther vs father, corpse vs cause, source vs sauce

Do non-rhotic speakers (such as native speakers of English English, General Australian English and New Zealand English) perceive them as homophones or are these perceived as different sounds, even though these words sound exactly the same to rhotic speaker (such as myself) when pronounced by a non-rhotic speaker?

Thanks in advance,

S

As far as I know, these pairs sound exactly the same in RP English. And according to Oxford dictionary, they are the same. I can't speak for other speakers, though. Just thought I'd share my opinion.

I think there's plenty of evidence that indicates that those pairs are indeed perceived as homophones and produced as homophones (except for corpse vs cause, /kO:s, kO:ps/ vs /kO:z/) by most non-rhotic speakers. Some non-rhotic speakers may have a rhotic substratum, and for these speakers the situation could be different. A middle-class speaker from the West Country who "learnt" to use RP as an adult could still have underlying /fA:rD@r/ vs /fA:D@r/ realized as [fA:@D@] vs [fA:D@]. Wells classifies this as one of the instances of "near-RP".

I'm a rhotic speaker, and if I were to take the R out of "source" and pronounce the vowel the same, it wouldn't be a homophone with "sauce". Sauce rhymes with cross. Is it like that for anybody else?

>>I'm a rhotic speaker, and if I were to take the R out of "source" and pronounce the vowel the same, it wouldn't be a homophone with "sauce". Sauce rhymes with cross. Is it like that for anybody else?<<

This is probably because you likely have a higher vowel in "source" than in "sauce" (or "cross"), which is typical for at least North American English dialects. However, it is quite usual to have a much higher vowel in "sauce" or "cross" in, say, many English English dialects.

<<However, it is quite usual to have a much higher vowel in "sauce" or "cross" in, say, many English English dialects.>>

Not "cross", though, because they wouldn't have the lot-cloth split.

>>Not "cross", though, because they wouldn't have the lot-cloth split.<<

Yeah - forgot that the lot-cloth split has largely died out in English English dialects today.

Thanks guys!

I myself do pronounce sauce and source with a different vowel too.
"sauce" has the /A/ vowel and source has the /o/ vowel followed by an r.