Re: Changes in pronunciation before 'l' in English

From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 07/28/04 

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 18:41:22 GMT

Mxsmanic wrote:
>
> Greg Lee writes:
>
> > According to descriptions I've seen, 'l' after the vowel of a syllable
> > is velarized. I think it's actually uvularized, at least in my speech.
> > At any rate, the dark 'l' does indeed color the preceding vowel. The
> > 'l' may lose its alveolar articulation and become a uvular glide,
> > and then the diphthong formed by the vowel + glide combination
> > can monophthongize to a simple, rather hard to describe and
> > somewhat disgusting, single vowel. In my speech, 'milk' has
> > a diphthong and 'bulk' a simple vowel.
>
> I don't seem to actually hear an 'l' in my speech, but the vowel seems
> to change. There's a spectrogram created by that nifty SFS program at
>
> http://www.mxsmanic.com/walk.jpg
>
> I hear and see a tiny difference between "talk" and "tock," and between
> "walk" and "wok," but I don't know if it's significant or exactly what
> it means. I suppose it means a different vowel? The vowel in talk
> seems to be closer to 'o' than the vowel in tock.

talk and walk are caught, tock and wok are cot. Have you taken a
position on cot/caught yet? 

-- 
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@att.net

Relevant Pages

  • Re: formants
    ... A consonant followed by a vowel is always blended into single unit of speech. ... Just for a laugh, try saying a voiced consonant such "d" or "b", but suppress your automatic urge to add a subsequent vowel sound. ... It is easy to produce a very unnatural sound if you start noodling around with just the formants. ...
    (rec.audio.pro)
  • Re: Changes in pronunciation before l in English
    ... at least in my speech. ... >> can monophthongize to a simple, ... > vowel in those words because there is no 'l' to begin with. ... Barbara Need ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: k-like sounds in English and other European languages
    ... someone were to say breagdown or iddoes in everyday speech I doubt ... a voiced coda causes the preceding vowel to be much ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: non-phonetic english spelling
    ... >>school French are totally absent from speech, according, of course, to ... One of the problems is that the term "schwa" is used to refer to ... central vowel, especially an unstressed one. ... One thinks of Barcelona Catalan, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Changes in pronunciation before l in English
    ... at least in my speech. ... the dark 'l' does indeed color the preceding vowel. ... > 'l' may lose its alveolar articulation and become a uvular glide, ...
    (sci.lang)