External and internal factors in a levelling process: Prevocalic (r) in Carlisle English

This chapter addresses the language-internal and external factors in the levelling of (r) in Carlisle English, an urban community in the far north-west of England. Based on a quantitative analysis of oral history recordings and sociolinguistic interviews, which span 30 years in real time and 100 years in apparent time, this chapter concentrates on the distribution of this variant in different prevocalic environments. In particular, I explore internal and external constraints in the loss of taps, a formerly superregional feature which is now quite restricted geographically in the north of England. I argue that the different environments of prevocalic (r) need to be investigated separately because different mechanisms are at work in each environment and that language-internal factors play an important part in this change. I also argue that the loss of PreR-dentalisation is linked to the loss of taps.