Sunday, September 9, 2018

pronunciation - Why is this possessive, not objective case?




"Oh yeah, an' I still haven't got (IO) yeh a birthday present."
. . . . . .

“Tell yeh what, I'll get (1) yer animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at - an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get (2) yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry (3) yer mail an' everythin'."
(Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)



(1) and (3)’s yer may be ‘your.’ But (2)’s yer can’t be ‘your’ because of the next ‘an.’ So yer of (2) needs to be indirect objective, yeh, just as in (IO). Might there be some good reason for the writer putting yer in (2)?



Answer



I think perhaps it's an intrusive R. From Wikipedia (emphasis added, citation links removed):



The phenomenon of intrusive R is an overgeneralizing reinterpretation of linking R into an r-insertion rule that affects any word that ends in the non-high vowels /ə/, /ɪə/, /ɑː/, or /ɔː/; when such a word is closely followed by another word beginning in a vowel sound, an [r] is inserted between them, even when no final /r/ was historically present. For example, the phrase tuna oil would be pronounced [ˈtjuːnər ɔɪl]. The epenthetic [r] can be inserted to prevent hiatus, two consecutive vowel sounds.



In other words, I believe yer represents you in example (2), not your.



In "I still haven't got yeh a birthday present", I think the /r/ isn't inserted because the transition between yeh and a is (at least partially) glottalized.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Simple past, Present perfect Past perfect

Can you tell me which form of the following sentences is the correct one please? Imagine two friends discussing the gym... I was in a good s...