Белорусский государственный

Local
accents
are numerous, they can be urban and rural. Urban centres are leading in accent diversity today.
The major accent-classifying feature is the presence of 
r
in ‘rhotic’ (
r
-full) accents and its 
vocalization in post-vocalic position in ‘non-rhotic’ (
r
-less) accents. Most of the American accents 
(except southern and eastern) are rhotic, most of the British accents are non-rhotic (except northern, 
Scottish, Irish). 
Current changes in RP are grouped according to the degree of process completion: 
processes almost complete
, 
changes well-established
, 
recent innovations 
and
innovations on 
the verge of RP
. 
A more subtle realizational feature is /r/ pronounced as a post-alveolar approximant in all 
positions and not, as formerly, as a tap in intervocalic positions following an accented syllable, e.g. 
very
, 
error
. 
Comparing the sound systems of 
RP
and 
GA
we note differences in vowel systems (20 vs. 
15), in consonant systems (
r
-vocalization, 
t
-voicing, etc.), in accent placement, rhythm and 
intonation. The major differences in vowels are: [ɒ/ɑ:/ɔ:] in 
dog
, 
stop
, 
long
, 
orange
, [æ]-distribution 
in 
ask
, 
dance
, [oʊ]-quality in 
go
, 
home
; less contrast in length between American tense and lax 
vowels; retroflexion quality of American vowels before 
r
, nasalization before nasals, loss of 
contrast in 
cot/caught
, 
Merry Mary married
. In 
consonants
, besides 
r
-retroflexion and vocalization, 
there is American flap in 
better
, 
letter
, 
t
-omission before 
n
in 
twenty
, weakened [j] in 
news
, 
Tuesday
, dark [l] in 
little
, 
less
. There are also non-systemic,