<OT> The alternation between the flap /r/ and the fricative /z/

[Olle Kjellin]

The Swedish homophonous morphemes /r/ for the plural and for the 
present tense, e.g. /sko/ 'shoe' sg., /skor/ 'shoes' pl., and /ro/ 
'row (a boat)', /ror/ 'rows, is rowing', are the "same" as the 
English /s/, likewise for the plural and for the present tense, going 
back to a posed historical form /R/ (small capital), believed to have 
been pronounced as a kind of fricative trill. Maybe as in Modern 
Czech /r/ with a hook, as in  'Jiri' and 'Dvorak'? Or like the Irish 
sound described in a previous post?

In Modern Swedish, particularly in the Stockholm area, /r/ in onset 
position is often pronounced as a voiced palatoalveolar fricative, 
and in coda position often reduced to nil or a weak fricative, more 
or less voiced. Thus, e.g., 'rönn' (a kind of tree with red berries) 
may get more or less the same pronunciation as the French word 'jeune'

In Modern Turkish, coda /r/ is usually a weak, voiceless 
palatoalveolar fricative.
Cheers,
Olle