The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #141002   Message #3243812
Posted By: melodeonboy
24-Oct-11 - 05:01 AM
Thread Name: Why the 'r' between vowels?
Subject: RE: Why the 'r' between vowels?
What about the "intrusive" y then? I'd pronounce "he only" as eeyoanlee. (Sorry, I can't get IPA script on my computer!)

As for "l" being pronounced as "w", this happens because pre-vocalic and inter-vocalic "l" (e.g. list, taller) is a light "l" and is, to the best of my knowledge, always pronounced as what we would recognise as "l", whereas post-vocalic "l" (e.g. wall) is a dark "l". They are two different sounds phonetically, and many British English speakers (especially southerners like me!) don't naturally have the dark "l" in our "phonetic set", so we'd substitute a "w" sound (e.g. baw for ball).