Dictionary

non-rhoticity en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Germanic *ne Proto-Indo-European *ís? Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos Proto-Germanic *ainaz Proto-Germanic *nainaz Proto-West Germanic *nain Old English nān Middle English non ▲ Old English nān Old English nān- Middle English non- English non- English rhotacismbf. English rhotic Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ts Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts Latin -itāsder. Old French -itebor. Middle English -ite English -ity English rhoticity English non-rhoticity From non- + rhoticity.

Meanings

1. (rare, uncountable) The state or condition of being non-rhotic.
   • In the present analysis, we coded for the variants [ɹ], [ʁ], [ɾ], [ʋ], and [ɹ̝], and the zero variant [∅] to indicate non-rhoticity in postvocalic positions[.] […] Non-rhoticity appears to be (near-)categorical for all speakers. 2007, Dominic Watt, “Part 1: METHODS OF OBSERVATION AND ANALYSIS”, in Carmen Llamas, Louise Mullany, Peter Stockwell, editors, The Routledge Companion to Sociolinguistics, Routledge, →ISBN, PHONOLOGICAL VARIATION: (r) IN BERWICK ENGLISH, page 8:
   • It is surely not a coincidence that non-rhoticity developed in North America along the East Coast. […] In no case did it spread very far inland, except in the case of speakers of African American Vernacular English, who migrated from the southeast to the rest of the country many decades later, taking their non-rhoticity with them. 2010, Peter Trudgill, “The new non-rhotic style”, in Investigations in Sociohistorical Linguistics: Stories of Colonisation and Contact, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 155:
   • The discussion on when and how non-rhoticity began to spread in England is also relevant for the reconstruction of the development of non-rhoticity in North America. 2022, Ingrid Paulsen, The Emergence of American English as a Discursive Variety, Language Science Press, →ISBN, page 145:
   • Non-rhoticity is associated with two quite distinct social groups in the south[.] ‘[…] The fact […] has been either over-looked or deliberately ignored’, complains McDavid (1948), in an article reporting his investigations into rhoticity and non-rhoticity in South Carolina. 1982, John Christopher Wells, Accents of English: Beyond the British Isles, volume 3, Cambridge University Press, page 542:

Forms