final or linking /l/

[FRITZ JUENGLING]

I'm not sure this would qualify as linking /l/.  I know many people who say withdrawal because they do not know that it is not a verb--they confuse the noun and verb.  They use it in sentences like "I need to withdrawal the money."  One would not expect linking /l/ before /th/ and I never hear these people say linking /l/ anywhere else.  Might be analogous to 'acrosst.'
fritz Juengling

>>> flanigan at OHIOU.EDU 01/31/05 10:52AM >>>
Our local Sunday paper had a column by the managing editor stipulating
rules for letters to the editor.  She noted that some writers, having sent
in a letter, then decide "to withdrawal it."  I can only assume that she is
from Southeast Ohio, where a linking /l/ is common.  As in the case of my
earlier cited "drawling," her pronunciation has slipped into her
spelling.  (No doubt she'll get some irate letters from the J-School or the
English dept.)

Beverly Olson Flanigan
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Ohio University
Athens, OH  45701
1-740-593-4568
http://www.ohio.edu/linguistics/