How common is r-Epenthesis?

• Autores: T.A. Hall
• Localización: Folia lingüística: Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae, ISSN-e 1614-7308, ISSN 0165-4004, Vol. 47, Nº 1, 2013, págs. 55-88
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Recent work on consonant epenthesis has argued that the insertion of [r] as a hiatus breaker is phonologically natural (De Lacy 2006, Uffmann 2007). This claim is argued to derive support from the high cross-linguistic frequency of (intervocalic) r-Epenthesis. The goal of the present article is to investigate the original sources for the languages which are assumed to have a regular synchronic r-Epenthesis rule. It is concluded - on the basis of these sources - that there is very little solid crosslinguistic support for that process. If correct, this finding means that r-Epenthesis in many varieties of English cannot be argued to be phonologically natural on the basis of non-related languages with that process.