Distinctive Features and the Liquids in Picard

Abstract

<p>The class of liquid consonants, which traditionally groups laterals and rhotics, is called into question due to a lack of shared phonological feature with a phonetic correlate. Following recent work on the liquid consonants, this paper examines these consonants in Picard, a Gallo-Romance variety spoken in Northern France and Southern Belgium. The behavior of these consonants is analyzed both word-initially in liquid-glide clusters where we observe resyllabification, epenthesis, and sometimes deletion, as well as in word-final complex clusters. We find that the lateral consonant is more prone to deletion next to coronal consonants in both positions, leading to the analysis that the lateral is phonologically specified as [coronal], whereas the rhotic, which is phonetically coronal in Picard, is unspecified for place in the phonology.</p>