Conditioning factors in external sandhi : an EPG study of English /l/ vocalisation.

Abstract

English l-sandhi involves an allophonic alternation in alveolar contact for word-final /l/ in connected speech [4]. EPG data for five Scottish Standard English and five Southern Standard British English speakers shows that there is individual and dialectal variation in contact patterns. We analysed vocalisation rate (% of tokens with no alveolar contact) and the area of any residual alveolar contact. Word-final /l/ contact is, to some extent, onset-like before vowel-initial words and coda-like before words with a labial onset C. If the vowel has a glottal attack, however, or the onset C is /h/, sandhi is less predictable, suggesting that resyllabification is insufficient as a mechanism for conditioning tongue tip behaviour of word final /l/.