Are non-rhotic speakers aware of the fact that they're not pronouncing all of their R's?
Are non-rhotic speakers...
I don't think so because when I make fun of their pronunciation by spelling words like "dear" as "deah" while talking to them on forums etc. they don't even understand what word I had in mind.
Either they're completely retarded seeing words that contain r's every day and not noticing anything, or they just learned that it's pronounced that (wrong) way.
We, I think we tend to visualize T's when we're flapping them and they really sound like D's, because we "see" the written word in our minds, no matter how we say them (written just has a glottal stop for me, and matter is pronounced madder, no neither word has a true T when it comes out of my mouth). Why should the nonrhotic be any different when it comes to R's? It's more like those letters have more than one variation, like vowels.
Maybe they think about r's the way I think about "h" in "what", "b" in "bomb", or "w" in "flaw". I've seen people write "floor" when they mean "flaw", so that makes we wonder whether they pronounce them both as "flaw", and have noticed that there's a "silent" r in "floor", and figure that there's one in "flaw" as well, or whether they pronounce them both as "floor" (strangely, being nonrhotic often leads to people to people saying EXTRA r's, as in the case of Martin Bashir, who insists on referring to the president of the US as Bearack Obomer).
Of course we are, and you don't have to be an expert in phonetics to know so.
It's just a matter of the phonetic system. If a word like 'hard' or 'car' can still be understood, it doesn't really matter. I think dropping 'r' at the start of words would be weird, though.
Personally the 'r' sounds very prominent in rhotic accents and thus more natural to my ears, although I've got used to it through American media. To us a lack of final or pre-consonantal 'r' sounds more natural.
It's just a matter of the phonetic system. If a word like 'hard' or 'car' can still be understood, it doesn't really matter. I think dropping 'r' at the start of words would be weird, though.
Personally the 'r' sounds very prominent in rhotic accents and thus more natural to my ears, although I've got used to it through American media. To us a lack of final or pre-consonantal 'r' sounds more natural.
I guess if you're used to it, you can figure out what is meant, but if someone pronounces "hard" without the r, I'd be confused as to whether they mean "had" or "hot". And without the r, "heart" would sound like "hot".
"I've got used to it" rather than "I've gotten used to it" would be another example of something that's normal in your dialect that sounds odd in mine.
"I've got used to it" rather than "I've gotten used to it" would be another example of something that's normal in your dialect that sounds odd in mine.
I definitely find it odd whenever I encounter a 'got" where I would use "gotten". In fact, whenever I'm reading I'll "correct" such things even though I know they're not actually "incorrect" in the variety of English the author speaks.
Another Guest, I guest it wouldn't sound so much like "hot" as it would like "hooooot". That is, when they're not speaking quickly. Othawise who knews how they weuld realy sound, it weuld prohbably be ratha strange.
@Thaddeus
Yeah, they prefer to use got because it respects more the pure ancient English language...no wait.
@Thaddeus
Yeah, they prefer to use got because it respects more the pure ancient English language...no wait.