morpheme final or internal sca(r)ed, ca(r)s, pa(r)ty, fou(r)th,
ca(r)dThe loss of (r) can result in homonyms as in the pair pa(r)ty and potty or
ca(r)ton and cotton.
One of the most famous and earliest studies of the connection between
social identity and linguistic variation was William Labov’s (1966)
examination of postvocalic (r) in Manhattan (1972b). Since that time many
more studies have been published (Table 2.1).
Table 2.1 Quantitative studies of (r) in the U.S.
Location of study Year of publication Ethnicity of speakers
New York, NY 1966 (1972) White
Boston, MA 1967, 1971 White
Philadelphia, PA 1988 African American and
White
Anniston, AL 1990 White
Memphis, TN 1997 African American
Philadelphia, PA 1998 White
Davenport, IA 2000 African American
Boston, MA, and Southern, NH 2007 African American and
White
Stanstead, Quebec 2008 White
NH and VT, Upper Valley 2009 White
New York, NY 2009 WhiteSource: Adapted from Nagy and Irwin (2009)