44 Jen Hay and Margaret Maclagan
read aloud. This allowed for direct comparability of environments across par-
ticipants. Sixteen University of Canterbury students received chocolate ¿ sh
for their participation in the task. All students were non-rhotic, and native
speakers of New Zealand English.
Because our participants were students, social class was assessed by record-
ing the Elley-Irving scores of the participants’ parents. The Elley-Irving scale is
a New Zealand-speci¿ c index of social strati¿ cation which assigns scores from
one (highest) to six to New Zealand occupations (Elley and Irving 1985). We
added the scores for the parents together to give a rough social class index. This
index ranged from 3 to 11 (mean: 6.7; median: 6.5). The participants were aged
between 19 and 44 (mean: 26; median 23). There were 4 males and 12 females.
The participants were recorded reading 48 sentences targeting intrusive
/r/. The 48 sentences were randomized together with 86 ¿ ller sentences which
were designed to test hypotheses unrelated to /r/-sandhi. A total of 768 target
sentences (16 * 48) were analyzed. All sentences were read from index cards,
and recorded on Digital Audio Tape. Recordings were made using Sony DAT
walkman recorders (TCD-D8) and Sony tie clip microphones, (ECM-T145).
Base word Following environment
Sofa -ing
Oprah -y
Ma -ism
Bra -ify
Claw -ish
Plough -ese
-ize
inThe 48 sentences consisted of one of 6 base words, combined with one of 8
following environments. 7 of these environments were af¿ xes and one was
a word boundary. Table 2.1 shows the base words and environments tested.
The base words were chosen to represent a range of different vocalic environ-
ments. All base words were combined with all af¿ xes listed. The base plough
was included to assess the degree to which intrusive /r/ is used after /au/,
which appears to be an emerging feature of New Zealand English, occurring
concurrently with a change in the phonetics of /au/.
The sentences are listed in the appendix, and a quick glance over them
will reveal that we sacri¿ ced a great deal of “naturalness” in order to record
Table 2.1 Experiment 1 Base Words and Environments