Re: Lateral/vowel coarticulation

On Feb 17, 2009, at 11:29 AM, Roger Mills wrote:

>>>> On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:14:54 -0600, Eric
>> Christopherson wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi, folks. I've been wondering for a long
>> time if any languages
>>>>> feature coarticulation of laterals (e.g. /l/)
>> and vowels. I seem to
>>>>> be able to produce these, and they sound
>> somewhat distinct, although
>>>>> not as distinct as other vowels; but I've
>> searched and never found
>>>>> any mention of this occurring in natural
>> languages (either phonemicly
>>>>> or allophonicly).
>
> Not sure what you're getting at here. Do you mean [l+V] or [V+l]?
> In Engl. [l+V] has no audible affect on the V, though the [l]
> varies ("bright/dental vs. dark/velarized") depending on front/back
> V. Could it be that you're velarizing your [l]s?
No; I was talking about just trying to pronounce e.g. [l] at the same
time as I pronounce an approximation of [a]. I only do so when
experimenting (not while speaking English).

> That might have an affect on the following V quality.  In [V+l]
> there tend to be off-glides on the vowel, again depending on
> frontness/backness, and the [l] also varies.  Engl. certainly has
> what might be called "C with lateral release" (plan, blade, glue,
> clay, fly,)
I see. So it appears that in most cases when one sees something
transcribed [kl], it would be correct (in an even narrower
transcription) to write [k_ll]?

> but the release has no audible affect (IMHO) on the vowel--maybe on
> a spectrogram the formants would be different. But they're
> considered clusters in terms of Engl. phonology.
>
> In Engl. a following [r\] does have an affect on the vowel quality
> (also V+N) as we've discussed before. But I'm sure there can be
> retroflexed vowels that could be "units" not "clusters" in some
> languages. Maybe what you're hearing is some slight retroflexion
> (rather than laterality per se)???
>>>>
>>>>> However (and this is what prompted me to ask
>> this now), I was just
>>>>> reading about Hmong, and it has labials and
>> dentals with (dental)
>>>>> lateral release. I have never heard a
>> consonant with lateral release;
>>>>> would the vowel following a consonant with
>> lateral release sound like
>>>>> what I described above?
>
> I know nothing about Hmong, but IIRC _historically_ proto-Tai had
> clusters e.g. *pl, *pr that developed in various directions (often
> > /t/).
Cool! I have a conlang where *pn > tt (and other changes along
similar lines).

> Maybe Hmong retains these in some way... but I suspect they should
> be analyzed as clusters
Hmong is Hmong-Mien, not Tai, though both are grouped together under
the Austro-Tai hypothesis.

>
> I think generally, in phonetics, "release" (of affricates) is by
> definition at the same place of articulation as the stop-- [ts, tK,
> tS, pf, kx]-- and it might then depend on the phonological
> structure of a language whether these are considered units or
> clusters (cf. [ts] in English and German).
>
>
> Jeff Jones wrote:
>>>> Not for the typical /tK)/ type sound.
> You:
>>> That's not a case of lateral release, AFAIK.
> Jeff:
>> It isn't? [K] is lateral and it serves as the release
>> of [t] here ...
>
> Absolutely. Lots of languages have a /tK/ (contrastive unit
> phoneme, it may or may not arise historically from a cluster);
> while English can have a phonetic [tK] (eg. in Atlantic, Hitler,
> Gatling, some versions of "bottling") but phonologically it's a
> cluster.
I was mistaken about that.

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