Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

Examines r-lessness among the Lumbee and compares it to Anglo-American speakers in Robeson County.  Building on the work of Jason Miller (item MILL002) on Lumbee r-lessness, this paper studies the internal factors of age, sex, and ethnicity.  The study extracted tokens for /r/ from 40 Lumbee and 6 Anglo-American speakers.  The Lumbee speakers were divided into five age groups; the Anglo-American, three.  Three VARBRUL analyses were performed on the speech samples.  Several tables are provided which summarize the results. 

In summary, the study found that Anglo-American speakers are in the late stage of movement toward r-constriction, and women are further along in this change than men.  Lumbee speakers are also moving toward r-constriction, but the change is not uniform in each age group, nor is it clear that women are leading in the charge.