Abstract
Imaging and modeling studies suggest that American English /r/ has a complex articulatory profile. Gick [Phonology 16, 29–54(1999)] has proposed that dialectal differences in the presence of /r/ follow from the effects of syllable structure and prosody on component vocalic and consonantal gestures of /r/. This study presents acoustic data on word-medial, intervocalic /r/’s for speakers of two varieties of American English. Both varieties show an effect of /r/ on F3 and/or F4 of a preceding vowel. Where they differ is the acoustic properties of the constriction portion of intervocalic /r/. For one group, the intervocalic /r/ is very vocalic, with little difference in formant amplitude compared to the preceding vowel. For the other group, intervocalic /r/ is more consonantal, with clearly weaker formant structure than the preceding vowel. These differences in the acoustic profile of intervocalic /r/ co-vary with dialectal differences in production of final coda /r/. These results support a gestural account of /r/ variability, while also demonstrating the need for explicit principles of syllable organization which must be specified for each dialect. [Work supported by NSF Grant No. 0325188.]
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