Contextual variability in American English dark‐l

Abstract

This paper presents a four‐subject study that examines the relative influence of syllable position and stress, together with vowel context on the colouring of the dark‐l characteristic of speakers of General American English. Most investigators report lighter /l/ tokens in syllable onsets and darker tokens in coda positions. The present study demonstrates that when dark‐l serves as an onset in iambic intervocalic context with tautosyllabic high front vowels, it is fully dark as a result of domain‐initial strengthening. By contrast, when dark‐l is abutted across a word boundary to word‐final or word‐initial consonants, or when it is contained in a foot‐internal context (preboundary intervocalic rime with trochaic stress) its dorsal gesture is constrained, resulting in less dark tokens. In the case of dark‐l, articulatory undershoot must be understood not only in terms of the alveolar gesture, but also the dorsal gesture.