Re: Lateral/vowel coarticulation

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 10:18 PM, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> wrote:
> On Feb 17, 2009, at 11:29 AM, Roger Mills wrote:
>
>> 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).
I can kind of do that with [a] and [@], but it doesn't seem to do
anything to other vowels.

>> 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]?
Not in my 'lect (from the San Francisco Bay Area, pretty close to
American Broadcast Standard). The lateral in all of those cases is
just a plain old alveolar lateral, and the lateral airflow doesn't
begin until the tongue is in position. In fact, I think the unvoiced
stops may be aspirated before /l/ for me. It's certainly not lateral
release.

The only thing like a lateral release in English that I can think of
is an alveolar plosive onset followed by a lateral as syllable
nucleus, as in "bottle" or "Don Cheadle". In the former, though, you
also have a change in voicing.