Chapter 2
Social and Phonetic Conditioners on the
Frequency and Degree of “intrusive /r/” in
New Zealand English^1
Jen Hay and Margaret Maclagan, University of Canterbury
- Background
This paper investigates the use of intrusive /r/ in New Zealand English (NZE).
Intrusive /r/, together with linking /r/, is often referred to as /r/-sandhi. Most
non-rhotic dialects of English exhibit /r/-sandhi (see e.g., Docherty and Foul-
kes 1999; Foulkes 1997a, b, Tollfree 1999, Bauer 1984, Trudgill 1974, Wells
1982, Williams and Kerswill 1999). Linking /r/ refers to cases in which the
/r/ is orthographically present, and is produced across a morpheme or word
boundary when followed by a vowel (e.g., fearing, car alarm). Intrusive /r/
occurs in the same environments, but when there is no orthographic /r/ pres-
ent (e.g., clawing, ma and pa). Most theories analyze linking /r/ and intrusive
/r/ as synchronically identical—differing only in historical status (intrusive
/r/ arose later than linking /r/) and orthographic form.
The use of intrusive /r/ is phonologically conditioned—in most dialects
it occurs only after non-high monophthongs or after diphthongs with non-
high offglides. However many young New Zealanders are also beginning to
use intrusive /r/ after a new vowel: /au/, in uses such as now-/r/-and then, or
plough/r/ing.
Phonological accounts of /r/-sandhi vary in terms of whether they ana-
lyze the /r/ as underlyingly present, inserted, or some combination of the two
(see, e.g., McCarthy 1993, Harris 1994, Vennemann 1972, Johansson 1973,
McMahon, Foulkes and Tollfree 1994, McMahon 2000). However virtually
all of this literature models /r/-sandhi as a categorical phenomenon, assuming
implicitly that word exter nal /r/-sandhi processes are obligator y in the dialects
that contain them.
Despite the phonological predictions, production of /r/ across word bound-
aries is reported to be variable (Jones 1964, Gimson 1980, Wells 1982). Linking
/r/ appears to occur at higher rates than intrusive /r/, perhaps because the latter