Categorising vocalisation of English /l/ using EPG, EMA and ultrasound.

ABSTRACT: We consider allophonic and speaker-specific variation in the alveolar gestures found in vocalised and consonantal /l/. EMA or ultrasound give tongue position data and EPG gives simultaneous alveolar contact data. We find systematic vocalisation with interspeaker variation in the prosodic distribution of these vocalised forms. The data suggest some allophonic variation is subtle, continuous and gradient, while some is more categorical.caslBrowman, C.P. & Goldstein, L. (1995) Gestural Syllable Position Effects in American English- In Producing Speech: Contemporary Issues. For Katherine Safford Harris, F. Bell-Berti and L. J. Raphael (Eds.), 19-34. New York, NY: AIP Press. Foulkes, P. & Docherty, G. (eds.) (1999) Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles. London: Edward Arnold. Giles, S.B. & Moll, K.L. (1975) Cinefluorographic study of selected allophones of English /l/- Phonetica 31, 206-227. Narayanan, S.S., Alwan A.A. & Haker, K. (1997) Toward articulatory-acoustic models for liquid approximants based on MRI and EPG data. Part I. The laterals- Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 101 (2), 1064-1077. Scobbie, J.M. & Wrench, A.A. (2003) An articulatory investigation of word final /l/ and /l/-sandhi in three dialects of English- Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 1871-74. Sproat, R. & Fujimura, O. (1993) Allophonic variation in English /l/ and its implications for phonetic implementation- Journal of Phonetics 21, 291-311. Wrench, A.A. (2000) A multi-channel/multi-speaker articulatory database for continuous speech recognition research- Phonus 5, 1-13.pub2244pu