velarized /l/ and Billy Holiday

[David Bowie]

From:    Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>

> No, Tom, we don't.  No one has claimed that English /l/ is not
> alveolar.  The question is what's happening in the back of the oral
> cavity at the same time.  In post-vocalic /l/, the tongue rises to /U/
> position.  There is xray photographic evidence to show that opening
> between velum and back of tongue in /U/ is narrower than that in /i/.
> With /i/ the narrowing is at the palate, not at the velum.  You were
> roughly right about the primary articulation of /l/ and the place of
> articulation of /k/.  Otherwise your facts are wrong.  What I don't
> understand is, your commitment to your spelling system
> notwithstanding, how you can remain so determinedly uninformed about
> the basic facts of English phonetics.

General agreement, though i would point out that a number of varieties
of English have post-vocalic /l/-vocalization and -deletion (and some
even do such things in other contexts--Philadelphia <laugh> doesn't
consistently begin with an alveolar, for example). That's all
descriptive of various varieties of English, though, rather than
claiming that /l/ is, at core, non-alveolar. Not sure Tom groks the
difference, though.

--
David Bowie                               University of Central Florida
     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org