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Darkening and vocalisation of /l/ in English: an Element Theory account

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2019

KRISZTINA POLGÁRDI
KRISZTINA POLGÁRDI*
Affiliation:
Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Benczúr u. 33., 1068Budapest, Hungarypolgardi.krisztina@nytud.mta.hu
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Abstract

The lateral approximant in General British English (GB) is realised as light when occurring in the onset (leaf), and as dark in the rhyme (help, feel, google). Non-prevocalic positions are typical contexts for lenition, analysed in Element Theory as decomposition in weak positions. However, it is unclear how velarisation can be characterised as element loss if light [l] is represented as |A I|, while dark [ɫ] is represented as |A U|. Therefore, I propose that laterals in GB contain both the coronal |I| and the velar |U| element underlyingly (in addition to |A|), but because these cannot combine in a compound segment in English, they are both floating. Their association at the phrase level is determined by the apophonic chain (Guerssel & Lowenstamm 1996), mapped onto the structure of the syllable: |I| is attracted to the prevocalic position, |A| to the vocalic position and |U| to the postvocalic position. Darkening thus does not involve lenition of /l/, but partial interpretation in all positions. In contrast, I analyse vocalisation of dark [ɫ] as lenition, involving loss of |A| in weak positions. I integrate the lateral into the system of glides in English, and establish a typology of its behaviour across different accents.

Keywords

/l/-darkeningvocalisationapophonic chainEnglishGovernment Phonology
Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 2020 , pp. 745 - 768
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Péter Siptár, two anonymous ELL referees, and audiences of presentations at the 10th Government Phonology Round Table, at the 23rd Manchester Phonology Meeting, and at the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for valued comments on previous versions of this article.

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