Consonants /t/, /p/, /k/

The voiceless stops are subject to both regional and social variation within the North. Of this set, /t/ is the most variable. It can be realized as /r/, as an affricate [ts], as a glottal  or glottalized  .

Throughout the North, the pronunciation of /t/ as /r/ is found in certain phonological and morphological environments. Usually, this occurs intervocalically before a morpheme boundary, as in get off [gεraf] or put it , or an environment perceived as a morpheme boundary, e.g. matter [marə]. According to Watt and Milroy (1999: 29–30), in Newcastle this realization of /t/ is heard “most often in the speech of older females”.

In many urban areas of Britain, and in the North-east of England generally, /t/ can be glottalized. Glottalization of /p/, /t/ and /k/ is a sociolinguistic variable correlating with age and gender in the North-east. According to Foulkes and Docherty (1999: 54), there are two distinct patterns of what may be loosely termed glottalization in the speech of Newcastle:

First, what sounds on auditory analysis to be a plain glottal stop occurs categorically before syllabic /l/ (e.g. in battle). The second type of variant presents the auditory impression of a glottal stop reinforcing any of the three voiceless stops /p, t, k/ when they occur between sonorants (e.g. in happy, set off, bacon). These variants are usually labelled ‘glottalized’. (Foulkes and Docherty 1999: 54)

The glottal stop pronunciation, especially of /t/, has been observed to be spreading to almost all urban centres in Britain, and is often cited as evidence of the influence of Estuary English. However, it was first noticed at the turn of the 20^th century as occurring in the North of England and in Scotland. In the second half of the 20^th century, use of the glottal stop for /t/ has spread to most urban areas of Britain. Indeed, Trudgill describes this as “one of the most dramatic, widespread and rapid changes to have occurred in British English in recent times” (Trudgill 1999: 136). In the North of England, it is found in every urban centre except Liverpool, and even here, Newbrook (1999: 97) notes glottal pronunciation of pre-consonantal and final /t/ in West Wirral. In the North-east, the glottalized pronunciation is more characteristic of traditional Tyneside speech. However, research carried out at the University of Newcastle shows that younger speakers, and especially middle-class females, use  in the non-initial prevocalic context (as in set off), whilst the glottalized forms tend to be used mainly by older, working-class males. There is thus a pattern of variation correlating with age, gender and social class, suggesting that young, middle-class females are in the vanguard of a change towards a non-localized pronunciation.

Although this pattern might suggest that the glottalized forms are recessive in Tyneside, Llamas (2000) demonstrates that these variants are being adopted by younger speakers on Teesside, which “suggests that Middlesbrough English is converging with the varieties found further north in Tyneside, Wearside and Durham”. (Llamas 2000: 11)

Whilst the glottal stop pronunciation of /t/ is, as reported above, spreading to all urban areas of Britain, glottal and glottalized forms of /p/ and /k/ are confined to the North-east. In Tyneside, glottalized forms of these consonants, as of /t/, are found, though less frequently in the speech of females than males. In Middlesbrough, these glottalized forms are increasingly used by younger speakers, but there is also a trend towards a full glottal stop for /p/ in younger speakers (Llamas 2000: 10).

In Liverpool, /t/, /p/ and /k/ can be affricated in all positions, thus right, time  , hope, pay  , work, cry . In final position, they may be realized as full fricatives . Hughes and Trudgill (1996: 93) suggest that this phenomenon may account for the relative lack of glottal forms in this conurbation.