Re: My Pet Dinosaur - Re: If the asteroid had missed...

[Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu>]

Quoting Dora Smith <villandra@austin.rr.com>:

> I hope I don't get sent to the corner for asking this....
>
> How do you pronounce an r like a vowel?

I think David means that you can pronounce the North American English 
"r" sound as a syllable by itself.

For instance, for most North American speakers, the word "bird" 
consists of the consonant [b], followed by the "r" sound (drawn out so 
that it fulfills the function of a vowel), followed by the consonant 
[d].  Unless you come from certain locales on the east coast, there's 
no real vowel before the "r".

--
Nick Pharris
Department of Linguistics
University of Michigan

"Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity."
    --Edwin H. Land