Adjacent Vowels Research Articles

The Effects of Interactive Context on Acoustic Characteristics of Speech in People With Dysarthria: A Preliminary Study.

The current study compared temporal and spectral acoustic contrast between vowel segments produced by speakers with dysarthria across three speech tasks-interactive, solo habitual, and solo clear. Nine speakers with dysarthria secondary to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis participated in the study. Each speaker was paired with a typical interlocutor over videoconferencing software. The speakers produced the vowels /i, ɪ, ɛ, æ/ in /h/-vowel-/d/ words. For the solo tasks, speakers read the stimuli aloud in both their habitual and clear speaking styles. For the interactive task, speakers produced a target stimulus for their interlocutor to select among the four possibilities. We measured the duration difference between long and short vowels, as well as the F1/F2 Euclidean distance between adjacent vowels, and also determined how well the vowels could be classified based on their acoustic characteristics. Temporal contrast between long and short vowels was higher in the interactive task than in both solo tasks. Spectral distance between adjacent vowel pairs was also higher for some pairs in the interactive task than the habitual speech task. Finally, vowel classification accuracy was highest in the interactive task. Overall, we found evidence that individuals with dysarthria produced vowels with greater acoustic contrast in structured interactions than they did in solo tasks. Furthermore, the speech adjustments they made to the vowel segments differed from those observed in solo speech.

The "Starting-Small" Effect in Phonology: Evidence From Biased Learning of Opaque and Transparent Vowel Harmony.

The starting-small effect is a cognitive advantage in language acquisition when learners begin by generalizing on regularities from structurally simple and shorter tokens in a skewed input distribution. Our study explored this effect as a potential explanation for the biased learning of opaque and transparent vowel harmony. In opaque vowel harmony, feature agreement occurs strictly between adjacent vowels, and an intervening "neutral vowel" blocks long-distance vowel harmony. Thus, opaque vowel harmony could be acquired even if learners start with structurally simpler and more frequent disyllabic tokens. Alternatively, transparent vowel harmony can only be observed in longer tokens demonstrating long-distance agreement by skipping a neutral vowel. Opaque vowel harmony is predicted to be learned more efficiently due to its compatibility with local dependency acquired via starting-small learning. In two artificial grammar learning experiments, learners were exposed to both vowel harmony patterns embedded in an equal number of disyllabic and trisyllabic tokens or a skewed distribution with twice as many disyllabic tokens. In Exp I, learners' test performance suggests the consistently biased learning of local and opaque vowel harmony with starting-small learning. Furthermore, in Exp II, the acquired vowel harmony patterns varied significantly by working memory capacity with a balanced but not skewed input distribution, presumably because of the ease of cognitive demand with starting-small learning.

Bidirectional C-to-V coarticulation across syllable and word boundaries

Extensive work has explored the anticipatory or carryover coarticulatory effects of consonants on F2 of adjacent vowels using locus equation. However, studies examining bidirectional effects remain scarce. This study examines how voicing and place of articulation (PoA) of consonants affect bidirectional C-to-V coarticulation across syllable and word boundaries. Recordings of / C;1V;1.C;2V;2/, /C;1V;1#C;2V;2/ and /C;1V;1C;2#V;2t/ sequences from native speakers of Canadian English were analyzed. F0, F1, and F2 were measured at the onset and offset of the target vowels (/i ɑ/) to compare the coarticulatory effects caused by the adjacent consonants with different voicing and PoA (/p b t d g k/). Preliminary results (N = 6) indicate that coarticulatory effects vary based on voicing and PoA of consonants. Voiceless consonants exhibited a greater effect on f0 bidirectionally, but smaller effects on F1 and F2. Regarding PoA, only the effect of F2 in anticipatory contexts was dependent on different PoA. The findings also suggest that bidirectional coarticulatory effects are found across both syllable and word boundaries. Within and across these boundaries, larger anticipatory effects were found on f0, while the carryover effect on F1 was more robust. Concerning F2, differences between coarticulatory effects were only evident in voiceless and velar contexts.

Hiatus resolution and linguistic diversity in Australian English.

Vowel hiatus is typically resolved in Australian English through complementary strategies of liaison (j-gliding/w-gliding/linking-r) and glottalisation. Previous work suggests a change in progress towards increased use of glottalisation as an optimal hiatus-breaker, which creates syntagmatic contrast between adjacent vowels, particularly when the right-edge vowel is strong (i.e.at the foot boundary). Liaison continues to be used when right-edge vowels are weak, but glottalisation as a hiatus resolution strategy in general appears to be increasing and may be more common in speakers from non-English speaking backgrounds raising the question of whether exposure to linguistic diversity could be driving the change. We examine hiatus resolution in speakers from neighbourhoods that vary according to levels of language diversity. We elicited gliding and linking-r hiatus contexts to determine how prosodic strength of flanking vowels and speakers' exposure to linguistic diversity affect hiatus resolution. Results confirm that glottalisation occurs most frequently with strong right-edge vowels, and gliding/linking-r are more likely with weak right-edge vowels. However, strategies differ between gliding and linking-r contexts, suggesting differing implementation mechanisms. In addition, speakers from ethnolinguistically diverse areas produce increased glottalisation in all contexts supporting the idea that change to the hiatus resolution system may be driven by language contact.

Anticipatory coarticulation of the Spanish alveolar fricative /s/ in adults with apraxia versus dysarthria

This acoustic study compares anticipatory coarticulation characteristics of the Spanish alveolar sibilant fricative /s/ when in utterance-initial position followed by a vowel in adults with dysarthria and apraxia of speech. Three groups of participants (28 individuals with no speech disorder, 20 with dysarthria, and 8 with apraxia of speech) produced 12 monosyllabic words that included the five vowel sounds of central-peninsular Spanish. The acoustic measurements compared within and between groups were frequency of the spectral intensity peak (FreqMid) in different zones of fricative execution, magnitude of the change in frequency of the spectral intensity peak (ΔFreq) in the end zone compared to the average of the initial and middle zones, first three spectral moments, and the difference in spectral center of gravity between the middle and end zones (DiffM-E CoG). Several of these measures were able to differentiate between dysarthric and healthy speech, especially when /s/ was followed by an unrounded vowel, and the same occurred for apraxia, but this time when the adjacent vowel was rounded. While both disorders showed similar spectral patterns, the two motor speech disorders differed in terms of the measures FreqMid and DiffM-E CoG. Possible explanations for these differences are here discussed within the framework of motor control models.

Vokaalide ja klusiilide intensiivsussuhted laulmisel teksti arusaadavuse mõjutajana

Aim. The objective of this study is to ascertain (1) whether there is a tendency in operatic singing by which, compared to speaking, the intensity of all speech sounds is greater, but the intensity of voiceless plosive bursts increases proportionally less than that of vowels, which may make the recognition of plosives more difficult; and (2) whether pronouncing the bursts of voiceless plosives more strongly would improve their recognition. Method. The investigation was split into two stages. In the first stage, five classically trained professional Estonian singers (soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass) were asked (1) to sing an aria in Italian from a romantic period opera, and (2) to read the text of the same aria. The recordings were segmented on the level of single speech sounds, and the intensity level of each sound was measured with the help of the software Praat. In addition, recordings of sung performances by three Italian singers (two sopranos and a baritone) and examples of spoken text by two different speakers were similarly analyzed. In the second stage, a perception test with 60 listeners (21 male, 38 female, and one non-binary) was carried out. The listeners were aged between 11 and 74. Seventy-two sequences /a/–/k/–/a/, /a/–/p/–/a/ and /a/–/t/–/a/, sung by a mezzo-soprano on G4, were played to the listeners as stimuli. The listener had to identify the plosive in the middle of each stimulus. The intensity level of the plosive varied in four steps (including one step in which the plosive burst was removed and replaced with silence). To some stimuli sets were added either reverberation (to imitate room acoustics) or pink noise (to imitate masking sounds from accompaniment or ensemble partners); further stimuli sets included the addition of both reverberation and pink noise. Results. The first stage of the research showed that in the case of the Estonian singers the intensity of the sung vowels was, on average, 14.2 dB greater than that of the corresponding spoken speech sounds, whereas the intensity of the voiceless plosive bursts increased by an average of only 7.1 dB. The intensity difference between sung and spoken speech sounds was similar in the case of Italian vocalists. Producing the plosive bursts more strongly generally tended to improve the recognition of plosives only when reverberation and/or pink noise were added to the stimuli. The probable cause of lowered recognition is the masking of plosives by the room reflections of the preceding vowels and sounds from the accompaniment and ensemble partners. In the case of /p/, too intense a burst could actually diminish recognition to some extent. The recognition was often above the level of chance even if the burst was removed, indicating that besides the plosive burst some other clues to identify the plosive exist (such as the formants’ glide from the locus of the plosive to the adjacent vowel). Conclusions. There is no need to pronounce voiceless plosives with exaggerated vigor in singing if the room reverberation is small and there are no masking sounds from other musicians. The exception is /k/, which may remain unidentified if the plosive burst is not perceived. In poorer acoustic conditions, a stronger burst may improve intelligibility. However, the singer should be cautious not to overemphasize the /p/, as this may worsen its recognition.

Acoustic Study of the Nepali Nasal Consonants

The Nepali nasals have been characterized based on duration, formant structure, Cog, and SD. /n/ has the longest duration, followed by /m/ and /ŋ/. They are longer with homorganic vowels. The duration of each place of articulation remains constant across different vowel environments. N1 value increases from /m/ to /ŋ/ and N3 and N4 nearly follow the same pattern. BW1 is the largest for /ŋ/ followed by /m/ and /n/. Cog and SD do not correlate with place of articulation; rather, they correlate with the vowel environment. Similarly, amplitude does not distinguish a nasal from the adjacent vowel in all vowel environments.

AUSSIE ARTICULATION UNRAVELED: DISENTANGLING SYLLABLE AND VOWEL CONTRIBUTIONS TO MID-SAGITTAL TEMPORAL COORDINATION OF LATERAL APPROXIMANT

The objective of this research was to analyse the articulatory movements linked with the mid-sagittal plane in Australian English /l/. For this purpose, the investigation employed the experimental paradigm introduced by Sproat and Fujimura (1993) as a methodological framework for analysis. The study involved monitoring the production of syllable-initial and -final /l/s in four distinct vowel environments (/æ/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /u/) by six speakers, using three-dimensional electromagnetic articulography (3D EMA). The timing lag difference between the tongue tip (TT) and the tongue middle (TM) was measured, along with the lag between the tongue tip (TT) and the tongue back (TB). Results revealed that during the articulation of the alveolar lateral approximant /l/ in initial and final positions within syllables, the timing and coordination of tongue movements differ. The findings align with previous research on the articulation of lateral approximant /l/ in American-accented English. The temporal coordination between coronal (i.e., TT) and dorsal (i.e., TM/TB) articulatory movements would be influenced by syllable position. In syllable-initial /l/s, coronal and dorsal articulatory movements are nearly simultaneous, whereas in syllable-final /l/s, dorsal articulatory movement precedes the coronal articulatory movement. Regarding the vowel effect, we observed that the influence of vowels on timing differences is not consistent across all measurements. While adjacent vowels partly affected timing discrepancies, particularly in the tongue tip-to-middle (TT-TM) measurement in syllable-final positions, the tongue tip-to-back (TT-TB) measurement does not show the impact of surrounding vowels, except in the /æ/ vowel environment.

On the Acoustics of Emphasis in Central Mount Lebanon Lebanese

Abstract This paper presents a study of emphasis in an attempt to determine its acoustic correlates in Central Mount Lebanon Lebanese Arabic (CMLL), an urban colloquial variety of Arabic spoken in Lebanon. Several analyses of emphasis exist in the literature, which largely focus on neighbouring vowels and either investigate, or make use of, a link between F2 lowering and emphasis. This study, based on acoustic data from 11 speakers, considers various possible consonantal as well as vocalic correlates. The vocalic analyses make use of statistical modelling in linear mixed effects, and generalised additive mixed modelling. This study finds significant F2 lowering in vowels preceding the emphatic voiceless sibilant /ṣ/. It argues that, in terms of the acoustics, emphasis is a vocalic rather than consonantal phenomenon, and that, in CMLL, the phonological feature ‘emphasis’ is consonantal, but is realized phonetically as a colouration of the adjacent vowels.

Acoustic correlates of Burmese voiced and voiceless sonorants.

Voiceless sonorant consonants are typologically rare segments, appearing in only a few of the world's languages, including Burmese. In this study, Burmese sonorants and their adjacent vowels are investigated in an attempt to (1) determine what acoustic correlates distinguish voiced and voiceless sonorants and (2) determine whether there are multiple realizations of voiceless sonorants and, if so, establish what acoustic correlates distinguish them. In order to pursue these questions, a production study was carried out and target words were analyzed, demonstrating that Burmese voiceless sonorants have a spread glottis period resulting in turbulent airflow 78 % of the time. Findings from linear mixed-effects models showed that voiced and voiceless sonorants are significantly different in terms of duration of the sonorant, F0 of the sonorant, and strength of excitation measured over the following vowel. A linear discriminant analysis was able to predict voicing category with 86.7 % accuracy, with the duration of the spread glottis period being the best indicator of voicelessness, followed by the cues that were significant in the linear mixed-effects models. In cases when the spread glottis period is absent from voiceless sonorants, the sonorant only has correlates that are associated with voicelessness (such as F0 and strength of excitation) but not correlates that are associated with the spread glottis gesture (such as duration and harmonics-to-noise ratio). These results have implications both for our understanding of the acoustics of Burmese sonorants and for our understanding of voiceless sonorants more generally.

Palatalization and tongue root harmony in Mongolian

Khalkha Mongolian exhibits Tongue Root harmony, in which vowels in a word share specification of root features, as well as vowel fronting in the environment of palatalized consonants. This paper examines the interaction of the two processesof interest because the acoustic cues for tongue root harmony and palatalization oppose one another. Vowels in tongue root harmony systems are categorized by tongue root position, which triggers changes in F1. Advanced Tongue Root (ATR)corresponds to a decreased F1 (see Starwalt, 2008), while Retracted Tongue Root (RTR), active in Mongolian, corresponds to increased F1 (Svantesson, 1985). Meanwhile, a primary cue of palatalization is raised F2. In Mongolian, palatalized consonants contrast only in RTR words. Palatalized consonants front adjacent vowels, which exhibit increased F2 and decreased F1. These adjacent vowels are therefore targets for both F1 raising attributable to RTR and F1 lowering due to palatalization. The specific correlates of such vowels have not been previously reported, however. Thus, using data from a corpus of six Khalkha Mongolian speakers recorded in a laboratory setting, this paper reports on the acoustic correlates of RTR in Mongolian vowels in the context of palatalization.

Categoricity and gradience: A case study of Sakha lateral liquids

I report on a recent acoustic study on the lateral liquid /l/ variation in Sakha (Turkic). I investigated /l/ darkening in Sakha in multiple lexical (including mono- and bi-morphemic) environments. In particular, I show that the effects of neighboring vowels on /l/ darkening are quite remarkable, to the extent that one is tempted to conclude that /l/ is participating in vowel harmony. I do not necessarily make this claim, but it is quite clear that adjacent vowels play a major role in Sakha/l/ darkening. The results show that /l/ variation in this language, like English, is both categorical and gradient. Backness of vowels determines which /l/ to appear. Therefore, the major finding of the study is that, rather than syllable structure, it is primarily vowel backness that determines /l/ variation in this language. This, in turn, indicates that variation of this consonant is categorically affected by vowel harmony. At the same time, I also discuss how one could potentially argue for a completely phonetic (i.e., gradience) approach. Still, based on the investigation of /l/ variation in several environments, I conclude that categoricity and gradience each plays a distinct role.

The Domain of Emphasis Spreading in Rural Jordanian Arabic

Emphasis spread has been empirically investigated in a number of Arabic vernaculars. Previous accounts of its (non-)application indicate that its domain varies across dialects, ranging from the adjacent vowels to the syllable, to the morpheme, and finally to the (phonological) word. This research paper, which contains an experiment analyzing data from 14 native speakers of Rural Jordanian Arabic (RJA) spoken in Irbid, explores the domain of emphasis spread in this sub-variety, which is an understudied dialect. The results show that emphasis spread is not sensitive to the adjacent vowels or the syllable, but rather to the morpheme type; that is, it applies to suffixes and proclitics, but not to clitics, unless the source of emphasis is very close to the target clitic. Following Selkirk (1996) and consistent with Jaradat (2018), we propose a prosodic account to emphasize spread in RJA: proclitics and suffixes are prosodically integrated into the host stem, and therefore they allow emphasis spread. On the contrary, clitics are prosodically free. Hence, the prosodic word boundary between a stem and a clitic blocks emphasis spread from the stem onto the clitic, unless the source of emphasis is too close to the target clitic. This implies that the domain of emphasis spread is not only dialect-specific, but may also differ among the sub-varieties of one Arabic dialect.

Lithuanian and Latvian laterals: Comparison of acoustic properties

The aim of the paper is to examine how acoustic contrast manifests itself between /l/ and /ʎ/ in Latvian, as well as /l/ and /lʲ/ in Lithuanian. For the study, speech recordings of 6 adult informants (3 Lithuanian and 3 Latvian male speakers) have been analysed. Initial and final laterals in closed symmetric [l]V[l] sequences and intervocalic syllable-initial laterals in V[l]V sequences have been examined. During the analysis, the focus is placed mainly on locus equations, as well as changes in formant structure (especially F1 and F2) triggered by position and vocalic context. Acoustic data demonstrates differences in coarticulation effects between Latvian palatal /ʎ/ and Lithuanian palatalized /lʲ/. The formant structure of /ʎ/ and /lʲ/, unlike the corresponding non-palatal laterals, is more stable and less dependent on the quality of adjacent vowels. Vowel context affects the degree of palatalization, e. g. palatalized [lʲ] next to [ɪ], [iː] and [eː] is pronounced “softer” than next to [ɔ̟], [o̟ː], [ʊ̟], and [u̟ː]. Latvian /ʎ/ is characterized by a more stable vowel F2 locus, which indicates higher degree of coarticulatory resistance to vowel effects; the quality of /lʲ/, on the contrary, depends more on vowel context. The same is true (although to lesser degree) for the Lithuanian /l/. The assumption about the similarity of Latvian non-palatal /l/ and Lithuanian palatalized /lʲ/ is only partly supported by the recent data. In terms of the degree of coarticulation (indicated by slope values of locus equations), Latvian /l/ is closer to Lithuanian /lʲ/, while its formant structure, especially low F2, brings it closer to Lithuanian /l/.

Sonorant spectra and coarticulation distinguish speakers with different dialects

This study aims to determine the effect of language varieties on the spectral distribution of stressed and unstressed sonorants (nasals /m, n/, lateral approximants /l/, and rhotics /r/) and their coarticulatory effects on adjacent sounds. To quantify the shape of the spectral distribution, we calculated the spectral moments from the sonorant spectra of nasals /m, n/, lateral approximants /l/, and rhotics /r/ produced by Athenian Greek and Cypriot Greek speakers. To estimate the co-articulatory effects of sonorants on the adjacent vowels' F1 - F4 formant frequencies, we developed polynomial models of the adjacent vowel's formant contours. All sonorants had distinct effects on adjacent vowel formant contours, especially for F3 and F4. The study highlights that the combination of spectral moments and coarticulatory effects of sonorants determines sonorants' linguistic (stress and phonemic category) and sociolinguistic (language variety) characteristics. It also provides the first comparative acoustic analysis of Athenian Greek and Cypriot Greek sonorants.

Acoustic Cues of /ħ/ and /ʕ/ in Hourani Jordanian Arabic: Investigating Sociolinguistic Variation

This paper examines the interaction between the coarticulatory effects of pharyngeals on adjacent vowels and the speakers’ age and gender in Hourani Jordanian Arabic. To this end, 28 participants were recorded reading a list of 24 words containing a pharyngeal sound (/ħ/ or /ʕ/) preceded (word-finally) or followed (word-initially) by a short or long vowel. A total of 1344 tokens were extracted and then analyzed in PRAAT. The first three formant frequencies (F1, F2, F3) of each vowel were manually measured at the midpoint. The measurements were then normalized using Nearey’s (1977) intrinsic formula to reduce the effect of physiological differences between male and female speakers. The findings of the study show no significant effects of age or gender on the production of the adjacent vowels word-initially or word-finally. This suggests that, unlike the case of pharyngealized sounds (e.g., Omari and Jaber (2019)), pharyngeal-to-vowel coarticulation is not affected by the sociolinguistic variables of age and gender. Keywords: Coarticulation; Extralinguistic variables; Hourani Jordanian Arabic; Pharyngeals.

Fifty years of change to prevocalic definite article allomorphy in Australian English

The English definite article has two major allomorphs: prevocalic /ðiː/ and preconsonantal /ðə/. Recent studies have shown changes to definite article allomorphy in some English varieties. Younger speakers, particularly from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, often use /ðə/ prevocalically rather than /ðiː/. The prevocalic definite article (PVDA) /ðiː/ facilitates management of vowel hiatus because it supports the emergence of [j] in preventing vowel adjacency (e.g. the ash [ðiːjœʃ]). An alternative strategy for separating adjacent vowels is glottalisation or glottal stop ([ðiːʔœʃ]). Few studies have explored the relationship between the vowel in the PVDA and hiatus management during the process of change. We report a diachronic analysis of Australian English (AusE) PVDA and associated hiatus management across a 50-year period (∼1960s to ∼2010s) and a synchronic analysis of present-day speakers from mainstream (MS) and non-mainstream (non-MS) (diverse) backgrounds using two read-sentence contexts. The aim is to provide insight into the process of change and factors that may influence its progression. Speech data from adolescents recorded in 1959/1960 were compared with recordings from Mainstream AusE-speaking (MS) young people recorded in the 2010s. Results showed significantly greater incidence of schwa in the PVDA and hiatus-breaking glottalisation in the modern data, particularly amongst females. The synchronic analysis comparing present-day MS and non-MS speakers showed increased use of glottalisation in females and non-MS speakers. Additionally, acoustic analysis showed more schwa-like productions in the PVDA by non-MS speakers. Of key importance in both analyses is that glottalisation was more prevalent than schwa, possibly indicating glottalisation triggered the change.

Phonetic Effects in the Perception of VOT in a Prevoicing Language.

Previous production studies have reported differential amounts of closure voicing in plosives depending on the location of the oral constriction (anterior vs. posterior), vocalic context (high vs. low vowels), and speaker sex. Such differences have been attributed to the aerodynamic factors related to the configuration of the cavity behind the oral constriction, with certain articulations and physiological characteristics of the speaker facilitating vocal fold vibration during closure. The current study used perceptual identification tasks to examine whether similar effects of consonantal posteriority, adjacent vowel height, and speaker sex exist in the perception of voicing. The language of investigation was Russian, a prevoicing language that uses negative VOT to signal the voicing contrast in plosives. The study used both original and resynthesized tokens for speaker sex, which allowed it to focus on the role of differences in VOT specifically. Results indicated that listeners’ judgments were significantly affected by consonantal place of articulation, with listeners accepting less voicing in velar plosives. Speaker sex showed only a marginally significant difference in the expected direction, and vowel height had no effect on perceptual responses. These findings suggest that certain phonetic factors can affect both the initial production and subsequent perception of closure voicing.

Effects of uvular consonants on vowel quality in Lushootseed

Although the influence of uvular consonants on vowel quality has been studied in Interior Salish languages (Bessell, 1992; 1998; Flemming et al., 2008), it has not been studied in Coast Salish languages. This study investigates the effect of uvular consonants on vowel quality in Lushootseed, a Coast Salish language spoken in the Puget Sound region of the Pacific Northwest, which has uvular stops and fricatives. Archival recordings (Burke Museum, 2015) of a native speaker were examined. A study was performed to analyze the effects of uvular consonants on formants of adjacent vowels. F1 and F2 were measured for vowels adjacent to uvular consonants that were positioned pre- and post-vocalically. These measures were compared with vowels adjacent to non-uvular consonants. The results reveal that there was an increase in F1 and a decrease in F2 for all vowels. The effects were greater for F1 than F2. These results are in contrast with those of Bessell (1992; 1998), who observed two effects: (i) only non-low vowels were affected, and (ii) F2 showed a greater effect than F1. These findings provide further implications on acoustic phonetic research for Coast Salish languages.

벅아이 코퍼스를 이용한 미국 영어의 /l/ 연구개음화 연구

It has been widely recognized that there are two varieties of lateral liquid /l/, which are light /l/ (a non-velarized allophone) and dark /l/ (a velarized allophone). However, this categorical view has been challenged in recent studies, both on articulatory and acoustic aspects. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether to consider /l/ velarization as a continuum in American English and provide supporting data. A spontaneous American English speech database called the Buckeye Speech Corpus was used for the material. The formant frequencies of /l/ in each syllable position were measured and analyzed statistically. The formant frequencies of /l/ in each syllable position, especially F2 values, were significantly different from each other. The results showed that there were other significantly different varieties of /l/ in American English, which support the continuum view on /l/ velarization. Regarding the effect of the adjacent vowel, the backness of the adjacent vowels was shown to affect the degree of /l/ velarization, regardless of the syllable position of the lateral liquid. This result will help provide a solid ground for the continuum view.