2015/04/01 by Sara Mackenzie, Paul De Decker, Rosanna Pierson · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Mathematics · Psychology · Social Sciences · #American English #Astrophysics #Coda #Darkness #Geology #Irish #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Linguistics #Linguistics and language evolution #Mathematics #Optics #Philosophy #Phonetics and Phonology Research #Physics #Position (finance) #Seismology #Syllable #Variation (astronomy)
paper · doi:10.1121/1.4920801
openalex publication_date 2015/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14
This paper reports on the first acoustic study on the allophonic distribution of /l/ in Newfoundland, Canada, where Irish-settled varieties of English exhibit light variants in both coda and onset positions (Clarke 2010, Paddock 1982). This pattern is distinct from standard North American English which has a dark, or velarized form in coda position and light [l] in onsets (Halle & Mohanan 1985). Productions from 10 male and 13 female speakers from across the province were collected and spectrally analyzed using Praat 5.4 (Boersma & Weenink 2014). Darkness measurements (F2-F1 at the midpoint of each /l/) were calculated and within-subjects t-tests conducted to examine differences across onset and coda positions. Results show the standard North American pattern exists within our sample, with significantly darker /l/s in coda position. However, some speakers showed coda darkness values comparable to onset /l/s of those speakers with the allophonic variation. Others had darkness values comparable to coda realizations in all positions. These findings are discussed using a model of dialect contact that identifies how, despite the presence of the dominant North American pattern, some speakers of Newfoundland English maintain a several hundreds year old pattern which lacks allophonic variation across syllable positions.