Rhottic vs. Rhoatic speech

[pne]

So... "rhotic" has the GOAT vowel ("rhoatic")? Why'd nobody ever tell me?

(Prompted by the 2 September entry of John Wells's phonetic blog.)

I suppose that's yet another word that I mispronounce because I've only seen it in writing.

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

There was a discussion of this recently on the ZBB and it baffled me. After all, everyone says rho with the GOAT vowel. I think some people may be thrown by "eros" -> "erotic", but I don't see that as an analogous formation.

[pne.livejournal.com]

After all, everyone says rho with the GOAT vowel.

Well, compare the A in photogrAph - photogrAphic - photogrAphy... it's not uncommon for vowels to change when derivational suffixes are added.

And as John Wells points out, the -otic ending is very often pronounced with LOT, e.g. "in antibiotic, asymptotic, demotic, erotic, exotic, hypnotic, narcotic, necrotic, neurotic, osmotic, patriotic, quixotic, sclerotic and semiotic."

Though, as he also points out, those are all (except for quixotic) "stem + -otic", while "rhotic" is "rhot- + ic".

I suspect I went with LOT by analogy with all the words containing the Greek -otic morpheme.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

In all the other cases you mention, there is a stress shift. It's not "photogrAphy", it's "photOgraphy", with consequent reduction of /æ/ to /ə/. By contrast, the /o/ carries the full stress in both "rho" and "rhotic".

[psitticism.livejournal.com]

Nobody corrects your pronunciation because we like it when you pronounce stuff funny. It amuses us. :-)

[pne.livejournal.com]

Uh, thanks? :)