Linking /r/ in RP: some facts

Abstract

This paper is an account of facts gleaned from the auditory analysis of thirty-seven recordings made in the Department of Phonetics, University of Edinburgh, between 1949 and 1966. Every student and staff member in the Department (which was merged with the Department of Linguistics in 1967) was recorded reading a standard passage, ‘The Story of Arthur the Rat’. There were actually two versions of the story used. The earlier one, used until 1957, contains two fewer potential linking /r/s than the later version, which is that published in Abercrombie (1964).