"LEE Sau Dan" <dan... at (no spam) informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in messagenews:87iqxf86el.fsf at (no spam) informatik.uni-freiburg.de...

How do you know how to pronounce the "o" in "woman", "women", "won"?

The first step for "woman" and "won" is to recognise that the vowel is
short. The word "woman" is one of a large, irregular group where for no
apparent reason the shortness is not indicated by consonant doubling. Then
you apply 'magic w' (as some schools call it) to effectively convert <o> to
u>. The next step is relevant only if, like most English-speakers, you
speak a dialect that distinguished the vowel sounds of "put" and "putt".
The vowel in "woman" is surrounded by rounding-friendly consonants, and so
you get /U/ (as in "wolf"), while "won" gets the more regular /V"/.

A great many English speakers do not know how to pronounce "won" - they
pronounce it with a short 'o'. (I was going to write '/wA.n/ or
equivalent', but that is probably less clear a statement.)

In most varieties of English, the spelling "women" is morphophonemic - it
indicates the vowel-mutation plural of "woman". (Why the plural should
retain the more original vowel - the Old English is _wifman(n)_, with late
OE spellings in -mm-, and spellings wum-, wom- appear in the 13th century -
is another question.)
Richard.

On May 16, 7:00 pm, "Richard Wordingham" <jrw0... at (no spam) yahoo.co.uk> wrote:



"LEE Sau Dan" <dan... at (no spam) informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote in messagenews:87iqxf86el.fsf at (no spam) informatik.uni-freiburg.de...

How do you know how to pronounce the "o" in "woman", "women", "won"?

The first step for "woman" and "won" is to recognise that the vowel is
short. The word "woman" is one of a large, irregular group where for no
apparent reason the shortness is not indicated by consonant doubling. Then
you apply 'magic w' (as some schools call it) to effectively convert <o> to
u>. The next step is relevant only if, like most English-speakers, you
speak a dialect that distinguished the vowel sounds of "put" and "putt".
The vowel in "woman" is surrounded by rounding-friendly consonants, and so
you get /U/ (as in "wolf"), while "won" gets the more regular /V"/.

A great many English speakers do not know how to pronounce "won" - they
pronounce it with a short 'o'. (I was going to write '/wA.n/ or
equivalent', but that is probably less clear a statement.)

How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.

On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"

How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.

Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
have a reference for this Marathi case?

Your account of it is a bit
hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
aspiration,

so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"..

On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:

On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
the notion that scripts don't determine  pronunciation.

Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
have a reference for this Marathi case?

It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A]  vs.
[tSA*A].

On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:

On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.

Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
have a reference for this Marathi case?

It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A] vs.
[tSA*A].

Your account of it is a bit
hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
aspiration,

To hear a difference of solely aspiration between [tT] and [tT<h>],
listen to Kashmiri.

so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"..

There's more difference than aspiration. I was instructed in producing
the two by a Taiwanese chap.

On May 18, 10:05 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:

On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.

Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
have a reference for this Marathi case?

It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A] vs.
[tSA*A].

If by "forebears" you mean grandparents,

this seems a rather late
change to attribute to the influence of orthography, since Marathi has
been written for quite a few centuries. If you mean his ancestors many
generations ago, how does he know what their speech sounded like?

Your account of it is a bit
hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
aspiration,
To hear a difference of solely aspiration between [tT] and [tT<h>],
listen to Kashmiri.

so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"..
There's more difference than aspiration. I was instructed in producing
the two by a Taiwanese chap.
But the standard accounts of Pinyin have these two consonants at the
same point of articulation, distinguished only by aspiration.

It is strange enough for you to use Pinyin as a reference when describing
Marathi phonetics.

But it turns out by "Pinyin" you mean the speech of
a particular Taiwanese individual! How on earth do you expect this to
convey any information to people who have never met him?

On May 17, 6:05 pm, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"



ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:

On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.

Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
have a reference for this Marathi case?

It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A] vs.
[tSA*A].

What evidence is there that it was _caused_ by the use of Devanagari
script?

What percentage of Marathi toddlers are literate in Marathi?

On May 17, 4:41 pm, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:



On May 18, 10:05 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:

On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.

Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
have a reference for this Marathi case?

It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A] vs.
[tSA*A].

If by "forebears" you mean grandparents,

Progressing from his grandparents to his father to himself.

this seems a rather late
change to attribute to the influence of orthography, since Marathi has
been written for quite a few centuries. If you mean his ancestors many
generations ago, how does he know what their speech sounded like?

It has been written in Devanagari only for 50 years, except for non-
literary dialects most of which are not written.

Your account of it is a bit
hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
aspiration,
To hear a difference of solely aspiration between [tT] and [tT<h>],
listen to Kashmiri.
so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"..
There's more difference than aspiration. I was instructed in producing
the two by a Taiwanese chap.
But the standard accounts of Pinyin have these two consonants at the
same point of articulation, distinguished only by aspiration.

He wasn't a phonetician, so it never occured to him that one was
aspirated. Asked about the difference between the two, he showed a
difference between the angles of contact of the tongue which was the
way I was able to reproduce it to his satisfaction.

It is strange enough for you to use Pinyin as a reference when describing
Marathi phonetics.

The IPA table doesn't have a row for affricates. Pinyin does.

But it turns out by "Pinyin" you mean the speech of
a particular Taiwanese individual! How on earth do you expect this to
convey any information to people who have never met him?

Primarily by listening to sound clips on the web, spoken by a native
Chinese speaker.

On May 18, 1:21 pm, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"



ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
On May 17, 4:41 pm, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:

On May 18, 10:05 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:

On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.

Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
have a reference for this Marathi case?

It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A] vs.
[tSA*A].

If by "forebears" you mean grandparents,

Progressing from his grandparents to his father to himself.

this seems a rather late
change to attribute to the influence of orthography, since Marathi has
been written for quite a few centuries. If you mean his ancestors many
generations ago, how does he know what their speech sounded like?

It has been written in Devanagari only for 50 years, except for non-
literary dialects most of which are not written.

So whoever devised the Devanagari script for Marathi failed to
represent a phonemic distinction which is made in Marathi (and
presumably represented in the Modi script)?

Where did they find such
an incompetent?

Your account of it is a bit
hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
aspiration,
To hear a difference of solely aspiration between [tT] and [tT<h>],
listen to Kashmiri.
so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"..
There's more difference than aspiration. I was instructed in producing
the two by a Taiwanese chap.
But the standard accounts of Pinyin have these two consonants at the
same point of articulation, distinguished only by aspiration.

He wasn't a phonetician, so it never occured to him that one was
aspirated. Asked about the difference between the two, he showed a
difference between the angles of contact of the tongue which was the
way I was able to reproduce it to his satisfaction.

Was he a native speaker?

Do you have any reason to think that his
pronunciation is common?

It is strange enough for you to use Pinyin as a reference when describing
Marathi phonetics.

The IPA table doesn't have a row for affricates. Pinyin does.

Irrelevant. Affricates are composites of stop and fricative. They can
be represented in IPA as well as in Pinyin. But what you appear to be
suggesting is that there is a difference in point of articulation
which IPA does not recognize.

But it turns out by "Pinyin" you mean the speech of
a particular Taiwanese individual! How on earth do you expect this to
convey any information to people who have never met him?

Primarily by listening to sound clips on the web, spoken by a native
Chinese speaker.

It would be good if you could point us to some of those. The ones I
find all want you to pay money to listen to their sounds.

On May 17, 7:10 pm, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:



On May 18, 1:21 pm, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"

ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
On May 17, 4:41 pm, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:

On May 18, 10:05 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
On May 17, 2:48 pm, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:

On May 18, 7:43 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
How interesting. After Marathi started being written in Devanagari
with only one letter for the two phonemes /ts/ and /tS/, these
phonemes have been merging into one phoneme with allophones in
complementary distribution; the front allophone has moved back from
something like Pinyin <z> to something like Pinyin <c>. So much for
the notion that scripts don't determine pronunciation.

Whose "notion" would that be? The phenomenon of "spelling
pronunciation" is well known, English being particularly rich in
examples. However, it is normally a sporadic change. A phonemic merger
brought about by the influence of script would be interesting. Do you
have a reference for this Marathi case?

It was an anecdote related by a Marathi speaker comparing his speech
with his forebears'. One word pair we discussed was [tsA*A] vs.
[tSA*A].

If by "forebears" you mean grandparents,

Progressing from his grandparents to his father to himself.

this seems a rather late
change to attribute to the influence of orthography, since Marathi has
been written for quite a few centuries. If you mean his ancestors many
generations ago, how does he know what their speech sounded like?

It has been written in Devanagari only for 50 years, except for non-
literary dialects most of which are not written.

So whoever devised the Devanagari script for Marathi failed to
represent a phonemic distinction which is made in Marathi (and
presumably represented in the Modi script)?

That opens up a train of thought. I am not now sure it was the
influence of Devanagari; it might have been the introduction of a
prestige dialect. It might have been that [ts] and [tS] were one
phoneme in complementary distribution with one letter in Modi. If so,
this would have displeased the Sanskritizers who would have wanted
words with Sanskrit etymology to always have [tS]. [tsAra] means
fodder and doesn't have any Sanskritic etymology I can find. It might
not be used in literary Marathi which has added Sanskritic terms and
dropped "less civilized" (Marathi words underived from Sanskrit). This
might be how its distinct articulation survives to a point.

Where did they find such
an incompetent?

Sanskritization was a fad (or desanskritization in the case of
Tamilnadu); Panjab resisted Devanagarization and Sanskritization due
to resistance from Sikhs but Sanskritizers were influential in
Maharashtra. Modi did not have separate letters for different lengths
of [i] and [u] because they are not phonemic in Marathi. Spelt in
Devanagari, Marathi now has etymology based differences between short
and long [i] and [u]. Sanskrit doesn't have multiple phonemic
articulations for affricates. To make Marathis change their
pronunciations back to a single point of articulation, it was useful
to not add a letter for [ts].



Your account of it is a bit
hard to follow. AIUI, Pinyin <c> differs from <z> by a feature of
aspiration,
To hear a difference of solely aspiration between [tT] and [tT<h>],
listen to Kashmiri.
so it seems odd to describe it as "moving back"..
There's more difference than aspiration. I was instructed in producing
the two by a Taiwanese chap.
But the standard accounts of Pinyin have these two consonants at the
same point of articulation, distinguished only by aspiration.

He wasn't a phonetician, so it never occured to him that one was
aspirated. Asked about the difference between the two, he showed a
difference between the angles of contact of the tongue which was the
way I was able to reproduce it to his satisfaction.

Was he a native speaker?

Yes.

Do you have any reason to think that his
pronunciation is common?

I have no way to tell. I didn't ask anyone else.

It is strange enough for you to use Pinyin as a reference when describing
Marathi phonetics.

The IPA table doesn't have a row for affricates. Pinyin does.

Irrelevant. Affricates are composites of stop and fricative. They can
be represented in IPA as well as in Pinyin. But what you appear to be
suggesting is that there is a difference in point of articulation
which IPA does not recognize.

IPA recognizes differences in point of articulation. He suggested a
change in angle of contact. I tried that and found that changing the
angle also changed the point of articulation. Moving the tongue back
from dental to denti-alveolar without changing angle of contact and
without adding aspiration also met his approval. What DID not meet his
approval was adding only aspiration, like in Kashmiri.

But it turns out by "Pinyin" you mean the speech of
a particular Taiwanese individual! How on earth do you expect this to
convey any information to people who have never met him?

Primarily by listening to sound clips on the web, spoken by a native
Chinese speaker.

It would be good if you could point us to some of those. The ones I
find all want you to pay money to listen to their sounds.

Oh, dear! I thought there must be some free ones by now. I hadn't
found any at that time, but that was a long time back.

"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma... at (no spam) verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:2be547c4-f655-4078-9df2-461e082f615b at (no spam) e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
On May 18, 12:00 pm, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons... at (no spam) rudhar.com.invalid
wrote:





Sun, 18 May 2008 08:36:58 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
gramma... at (no spam) verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
On May 18, 11:10 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons... at (no spam) rudhar.com.invalid
wrote:
Sun, 18 May 2008 06:41:08 -0700 (PDT): "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com>: in sci.lang:

If prestige speakers decide to merge them, others might follow suit.
There's a story that a Spanish king's lisp changed a sibilant in the
language of all citizens. Even if apocryphal, is it an unlikely story?

And another story is that some French king's speech defect changed the
French r, which later spread all over France and to large parts of
Germany, the Nederlands, Scandinavia en Portugal. Any truth in it?

No.

Why don't you _research_ the alleged "story" and find out what, if
any, data underlie it?

It's much faster and more reliable to ask you.

Can you point me to some not-too-expensive books I could order, that
explain how the various uvular r's came about? That would interest me
a lot.

|No.
|
|Nor do I understand the question.

|"Came about" from what?

Ruud ---- I don't really see how Peter can fail to understand your question,
but here's an article which addresses the issue and includes some references
as well:http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/11/11-2186.html

On May 19, 1:27 am, "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"





ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
On May 18, 2:51 am, "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz" <benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz> wrote:

On May 18, 8:39 pm, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons... at (no spam) rudhar.com.invalid
wrote:

Sat, 17 May 2008 19:10:26 -0700 (PDT): "benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz"
benli... at (no spam) ihug.co.nz>: in sci.lang:

So whoever devised the Devanagari script for Marathi failed to
represent a phonemic distinction which is made in Marathi (and
presumably represented in the Modi script)? Where did they find such
an incompetent?

You mean whenever a language is starting to be written, a competent
person always devises a script variant for it that is in line with the
phonemics of the language in question?

Interesting.

Well, there have been a lot of competent jobs done, even by people
without formal linguistic training.
I guess I was thinking within the time frame implied by Ranjit's "50
years". In the mid-20th century I would have expected the Indian
government to have access to some linguistically informed help. But
then the Marathi site talked about Modi script being used only until
the 18th century.

My friend's father has used Modi, so it was used in the 20th century.

OK. On the basis of what we know so far, we might guess that the
application of Devanagari to writing Marathi began in the 18th
century, but coexisted with Modi for a couple of hundred years. In the
mid 20th century (I saw a date of 1950 somewhere) the Indian govt
decreed that it was to be Devanagari only from then on. Nowadays
people say Modi is impractical for computer use and so on, and Mr
Gangal tells us that Devanagari is the "birthright" of all Marathi
speakers.

Ross Clark- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

the authors happen to discredit the notion of a connection between the
development of the uvular r as a result of prestige imitation

"Brian M. Scott" <b.sc... at (no spam) csuohio.edu> wrote in messagenews:ej4x64pn23o4$.ba5k2ygb2p4j$.dlg at (no spam) 40tude.net...

On Sat, 17 May 2008 03:00:08 +0100, Richard Wordingham
jrw0... at (no spam) yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
news:U_qXj.15453$U61.4618 at (no spam) newsfe12.ams2> in sci.lang:
A great many English speakers do not know how to pronounce
"won" - they  pronounce it with a short 'o'.  (I was
going to write '/wA.n/ or  equivalent', but that is
probably less clear a statement.)
Where?  I don't think that I've ever heard a native speaker
do this.

Certainly in England.  I don't know whether the distribution parallels the
pronunciation of _one_ as /wA.n/ - that pronunciation is supposed to be
commoner in Northern England.

"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma... at (no spam) verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:c301247a-8879-43fd-b9ad-0083543a8286 at (no spam) e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
On May 18, 3:59 pm, "alan" <in_flagra... at (no spam) hotmail.com> wrote:





"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma... at (no spam) verizon.net> wrote in
messagenews:2be547c4-f655-4078-9df2-461e082f615b at (no spam) e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
On May 18, 12:00 pm, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons... at (no spam) rudhar.com.invalid
wrote:

Sun, 18 May 2008 08:36:58 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
gramma... at (no spam) verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
On May 18, 11:10 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons... at (no spam) rudhar.com.invalid
wrote:
Sun, 18 May 2008 06:41:08 -0700 (PDT): "ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com"
ranjit_math... at (no spam) yahoo.com>: in sci.lang:

If prestige speakers decide to merge them, others might follow suit.
There's a story that a Spanish king's lisp changed a sibilant in the
language of all citizens. Even if apocryphal, is it an unlikely
story?

And another story is that some French king's speech defect changed
the
French r, which later spread all over France and to large parts of
Germany, the Nederlands, Scandinavia en Portugal. Any truth in it?

No.

Why don't you _research_ the alleged "story" and find out what, if
any, data underlie it?

It's much faster and more reliable to ask you.

Can you point me to some not-too-expensive books I could order, that
explain how the various uvular r's came about? That would interest me
a lot.

|No.
|
|Nor do I understand the question.

|"Came about" from what?

Ruud ---- I don't really see how Peter can fail to understand your
question,
but here's an article which addresses the issue and includes some
references
as well:http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/11/11-2186.html

|That's not what I was querying. I asked what he meant by "how the
|various uvular r's came about." How do you connect that with Labov's
|observation of unconscious prestige imitation?

I'm not about to pick out the relevant sections for you, but the article I
referred to above discusses "how the various uvular r's came about" ;  the
authors happen to discredit the notion of a connection between the
development of the uvular r as a result of prestige imitation.  Read the
article, or don't --- but if you don't, please don't comment on it.