Sproat, R. & Fujimura, O. (1993). Allophonic variation in English /l/ and its implications for phonetic implementation. Journal of Phonetics, 21, 291-311.
Presentation: Sarah
Summary: Sally
This study investigated English /l/, a sound which has traditionally been classified into two allophones, light and dark using acoustic and X-ray microbeam data. Four speakers were included in the study, and pellets were put at the tip, blade, and dorsum positions of their tongue when they read the stimuli. Stimuli were sentences containing /l/s in final (pre-boundary) and initial (post-boundary) position in the /i-I/ segmental context and trochaic stress context. In addition, syllables of interest were roughly allocated at the same position within the sentence. Acoustical data regarding temporal cues were collected and relative timing of gestures was calculated. Results showed that the pre-boundary rime duration is crucial in determining the realization of /l/. Giving a longer rime, the dorsal gesture is attracted to the nucleus earlier than the apical gesture, which results in a larger displacement between the two gestures. On the other hand, though the dorsal gesture is still attracted to the nucleus, the relatively short rime will make it extremely close to the apical gesture; both occur around the margin of the syllable. Based on this finding, the authors proposed that light and dark /l/s should not be viewed as phonologically or even physiologically distinct elements. Rather, they are phonetically predictable variations of the same /l/ category.
No comments:
Post a Comment