Southwestern phonology: consonants H

As with the Southeastern accents discussed above, Southwestern accents have sociolinguistically variable H dropping. According to Upton, Sanderson, and Widdowson (1987: 104), H dropping occurs in house in Cornwall, Devon, western Somerset, northern Wiltshire, and southern Dorset, but does not occur in other areas of the Southwest. According to Wakelin (1986: 31), aspiration may occur before /r/ in word-initial clusters (i.e. /hrV/) in southern Somerset, while in West Somerset and North Devon the aforementioned metathesis of a syllable onset /r/ and its following vowel may result in the pronunciation /hərd/ red.