Wide-domainr-effects in English

The syllable has been credited with hosting a wide range of segmental patterns in phonology. However, there is increasing evidence that many of these patterns have a broader prosodic scope than is suggested by established syllabic analyses. Non-rhoticity is one of a collection of r -related effects in English that illustrate this point. Some of these effects have to do with the distribution of r itself: it can appear in positions that can be specified syllabically only by enriching prosodic theory in undesirable ways. Others have to do with the influence r exerts on neighbouring segments, particularly coronal consonants and preceding stressed vowels. Specifying the phonological context of these segmental effects requires explicit reference to the foot and the word rather than the syllable.