# de-rhotacism of r



## Platytude

Hi,

In some languages, there was a rhotacism of *s to some form of r. Has the opposite also occurred (r > alveolar or dental fricative) somewhere? Does Czech ř count as a (to-be) example of this? 

P.S. The term is "de-rhotacism" in speech pathology; is it in historical linguistics too?


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## Swatters

There's a handful of words with /r/ > /z/ in French, but the change was reversed before it spread to every word (this was a century or so prior to uvularisation) : cathedram > chaire > chaise (chair, compare to... the English loanword chair) and beryl + -culos > bericles/béricles > besicles/bésicles (spectacles, compare to the Walloon cognate /bɛrik/)

An equivalent term to rhotacism with an endpoint of /s ~ z/ would be "sigmatism", but that's mostly used by speech pathologists to refer to a specific lisp


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## Awwal12

Platytude said:


> Has the opposite also occurred (r > alveolar or dental fricative) somewhere? Does Czech ř count as a (to-be) example of this?


Old Polish palatalized [rʲ] has become post-alveolar [ʐ] (positionally, [ʂ]).


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## Platytude

Awwal12 said:


> Old Polish palatalized [rʲ] has become post-alveolar [ʐ] (positionally, [ʂ]).


Is it the same sound they represent by rz?


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## Awwal12

Platytude said:


> Is it the same sound they represent by rz?


Yes, "rz" represents those [ʐ] and [ʂ] which originate from [rʲ] (though they're totally homophonous to "ż" and "sz").


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## Cenzontle

D. Lincoln Canfield's _Spanish Pronunciation in the Americas_ (p. 13) gives a list of eight specific areas in Central and South America where the /r/ phoneme (double _r _in spelling — an apical trill in most dialects) is realized as an alveolar "grooved fricative".  Generally called "assibilation", rather than "de-rhotacism".


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## LeBro

Platytude said:


> In some languages, there was a rhotacism of *s to some form of r. Has the opposite also occurred (r > alveolar or dental fricative) somewhere?



I wonder if the (alleged) */-r/ > */-z/ change (zetacism) (occured) in (Proto-)Turkic fits the question


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## Awwal12

LeBro said:


> I wonder if the (alleged) */-r/ > */-z/ change (zetacism) (occured) in (Proto-)Turkic fits the question


Except it's not */-r/, but /*ŕ/ of uncertain quality (speculated to be /rʲ/, /r̥/ etc.).


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## clamor

Platytude said:


> Hi,
> 
> In some languages, there was a rhotacism of *s to some form of r. Has the opposite also occurred (r > alveolar or dental fricative) somewhere? Does Czech ř count as a (to-be) example of this?
> 
> P.S. The term is "de-rhotacism" in speech pathology; is it in historical linguistics too?



In some Armenian dialects, the Classical /ɾ/ has become [ʒ] in a various set of contexts. Note that in the Standard modern varieties it is pronounced as [ɹ~ɾ] with contextual devoicing and allophonic palatalization, so the change to a sibilant fricative is not surprising.


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## Sobakus

In most Sardinian varieties, /s/ and /r/ are completely neutralised word finally: /r/ is pronounced [s] and /s/ pronounced [r] depending on the following sound. So _tres baccas_ [trɛrˈbakːaz̺a] “three cows”, _battor panes_ [batːɔs̺ˈpanɛz̺ɛ] “four loaves of bread”.


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## Dib

Sobakus said:


> In most Sardinian varieties, /s/ and /r/ are completely neutralised word finally: /r/ is pronounced [s] and /s/ pronounced [r] depending on the following sound. So _tres baccas_ [trɛrˈbakːaz̺a] “three cows”, _battor panes_ [batːɔs̺ˈpanɛz̺ɛ] “four loaves of bread”.



Sanksrit had a strikingly similar development. Word-final /s/ and /r/ lost contrast in most phonetic environments (only regular exception: [a_# W] W = vowel or voiced consonant), and their actual realisation varied widely based on the environment: including both [s] and [r] - as well as other sounds.


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## Dymn

Sobakus said:


> So _tres baccas_ [trɛrˈbakːaz̺a] “three cows”, _battor panes_ [batːɔs̺ˈpanɛz̺ɛ] “four loaves of bread”.


Off-topic but why the support vowel after the _s_? Is it an internal development or Italian influence?


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## Sobakus

Dymn said:


> Off-topic but why the support vowel after the _s_? Is it an internal development or Italian influence?


I don't think it's Italian influence – rather, all Romance varieties south of la Spezia-Rimini line that preserve final obstruents (such as _-s/-t)_ exhibit a support vowel after it. This is therefore a repair mechanism in the face of a prohibition on obstruents ending a syllable. The other repair strategy was their assimilation with further morphosyntactic reanalysis, as in most of the Italian area, where it's become limited to stressed syllables and to certain monosyllables (_raddoppiamento fonosintattico_). This makes the prohibition look very old, and the repair strategies inherited, or at least somehow independently pre-determined as soon as the prohibition arises.

Since Sardinian exhibits the most original stage in the development of the _raddoppiamento_ (which is integrated into its system of lenition and effectively blocks it), it's reasonable to think that the support vowel situation is also original, and hence in the parent variety of Late Latin assimilation and vowel insertion were alternative or complementary (just as in Sardinian) repair mechanisms in a system of sandhi similar to that of Sanskrit. There (still hopefully) are varieties around Cosenza and southern Lucania that preserve final obstruents, though they seem to use schwa or /i/ as a support vowel instead of copying it as Sardinian does. The now-intervocalic final /t/ is voiced in some of them, just like in almost all of Sardinian.

I'm not sure how original this is, but many modern (chiefly southern it seems) Indian pronunciations of Sanskrit insert a phrase-final copy vowel even after the coda /s/ undergoes sandhi to become [ h ] (known as _visarga,_ spelled : and transliterated ḥ), which then voices to [ɦ]. This is in effect a combination of these two repair strategies, but may be due to a newly-arisen ban on coda [ h ] which is itself the repair outcome of a ban on coda [ s ].


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## Uncreative Name

In Icelandic, R is often pronounced something like [z] or [ʒ].  (At least, that's what it sounds like to my ears.)  I don't know if this was a de-rhotacization sound change or not, though.


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## se16teddy

I am not sure if this answers the question; but in England many familiar nick-names use z in place of r:
Darren ==> Daz
Gerry ==> Gezza
Gary ==> Gazza
Barry ==> Baz
Berry ==> Bez Bez 'gutted' after testing positive for Covid a day after first DOI apperance
…
I am guessing, in imitation of childish pronunciation.


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## Sobakus

Uncreative Name said:


> In Icelandic, R is often pronounced something like [z] or [ʒ].  (At least, that's what it sounds like to my ears.)  I don't know if this was a de-rhotacization sound change or not, though.


That's probably what the Wikipedia article on Old Norse transcribes as [ɹ̠˔]. This sound developed out of the retracted [z̠] and had its own letter in the runic alphabet, ᛉ, today romanised as ʀ. In modern Icelandic it's merged with /r/, and the difference is now allophonic. The fricative-like sound normally occurs in the endings /ʏr/, /ɪr/, and is de-voiced unless a vowel follows; it doesn't occur at the start of the word, intervocalically inside the word, or when doubled – listen to the difference, also contrast. So this isn't a new sound change (de-rhotacism), rather it's selective preservation of the original post-rhotacism stage.


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## apmoy70

In Tsakonian Greek, the initial /r/ phoneme of Standard Modern Greek is often realised as a /sx/ and before a front vowel a /sç/ eg:
Classical Greek *«ῥίζα»* [ˈr̥id͡za] (fem.) --> _root_ > Standard MoGr *«ρίζα»* [ˈɾiz̠a] (fem.) = Tsakonian *«σχίντα»* [ˈs̠çiŋd̠a] (fem.) via an intervening *«*ῥίντα»* [ˈr̥iŋt̠a].

Αpologies for my late edit, but I just wanted to add that also in Tsakonian the cluster /tr/ (eg: MoGr *«τρία»*[ˈt̠ria] --> _three_ (cardinal nr)) is realised as the derhotacised /tʃ/ (eg: Tsak.*«τσ̌ία»* [ˈt̠͡ʃia] --> _three_ (cardinal nr)), while at the same time, the opposite phenomenon is observed with the replacement of final /s/ in MoGr nominals by /r/ (rhotacism or extreme rhotacism), eg: MoGr *«τρεις ημέρες»* [ˌt̠ris̠.iˈme̞ɾe̞s̠] = Tsakonian *«τσ̌ιρ αμέρε»* [ˌt̠͡ʃiɾ.aˈme̞ɾe̞] --> _three days_.


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## sumelic

apmoy70 said:


> In Tsakonian Greek, the initial /r/ phoneme of Standard Modern Greek is often realised as a /sx/ and before a front vowel a /sç/ eg:
> Classical Greek *«ῥίζα»* [ˈr̥id͡za] (fem.) --> _root_ > Standard MoGr *«ρίζα»* [ˈɾiz̠a] (fem.) = Tsakonian *«σχίντα»* [ˈs̠çiŋd̠a] (fem.) via an intervening *«*ῥίντα»* [ˈr̥iŋt̠a].


Does the spelling_ σχ _in Tsakonian really represent a cluster /sx/~/sç/, or is it a unitary fricative [ʃ]?


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## apmoy70

sumelic said:


> Does the spelling_ σχ _in Tsakonian really represent a cluster /sx/~/sç/, or is it a unitary fricative [ʃ]?


I think you're probably right, I'm familiar with Michael Deffner's Tsakonian script, which uses specific subscript & upperscript markings to show palatalisation (Zakonische Grammatik, 1881, p177), I'm unfamiliar with the later scripts devised by Hubert Octave Pernot (1934) and Athanasios Kostakis (1951)


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## bearded

I think the same alternation of r/s occurs in some cases within the English language (cf. I wa*s*/you we*r*e) and the German language (cf. ich wa*r *vs. ich bin gewe*s*en, and das We*s*en (=the being)).


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## berndf

bearded said:


> I think the same alternation of r/s occurs in some cases within the English language (cf. I wa*s*/you we*r*e) and the German language (cf. ich wa*r *vs. ich bin gewe*s*en, and das We*s*en (=the being)).


See #16. The /z/ rhotisation described tgere affected all North and West Germanic languages. German _ich war_ is a modern German regularisation to align ich war/wir waren. In early modern High German is was still _ich was/wir waren_.


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## Red Arrow

Uncreative Name said:


> In Icelandic, R is often pronounced something like [z] or [ʒ].  (At least, that's what it sounds like to my ears.)  I don't know if this was a de-rhotacization sound change or not, though.


This also happens in Central Swedish: r can be pronounced [ʐ].

(Dutch has some s > r: was/waren, vriezen/bevroren, verkozen/uitverkorene, but no r > s as far as I know)


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