AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

This study is concerned with the phonological comparison between Edinburgh and Inverness local speech samples focusing on the realisation of alveolar taps [ɾ] in both localities. The core of this paper concerns a quantitative and qualitative investigation of young middle-class male speakers, examining the use and phonological distribution of apical /r/. As previous investigations on Scottish phonology would have shown (for instance Romaine 1979; Johnston 1997; Llamas et. al 2008-2011; Schützler 2012), /r/ would fluctuate and be realised in several different variants, most prominently as alveolar approximant [ɹ] or alveolar tap [ɾ]. Since the description on the distribution of those two variants is rather general, it was intended to find a phonological environment that would trigger the apical variant. The approach aims at a phonological, dialectal and geographical comparison in both formal and informal speech style to examine apical /r/ induction.