Uvular /l/ (Was: velarized /l/ again)

[Neal Whitman]

I'm going to top-post on top of Larry's bottom post. Now *that's* evil!

Anyway, Larry mentions Stephen King. In fact, in a Jan. 2006 post on
Linguist List, Karen Chung writes:

I just watched a video interview by Bill Maher with author Stephen King on
Amazon's new ''Fishbowl'' program (http://www.amazon.com/), and was
surprised to hear King use a uvular nasal tap for some of his /l/ sounds. I
call it a tap because you can hear a kind of clicking saliva sound as the
back of the tongue quickly pulls away from the uvula. At first I thought it
was a problem with the file or transmission, but it occurs many times,
though there are also many ''normal'' /l/s.

The rest of her message can be found at
http://linguistlist.org/issues/17/17-230.html#1, where she gives a
transcript of the conversation and where she hears the strange-sounding
/l/s.

Neal

----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 7:44 PM
Subject: Re: Uvular /l/ (Was: velarized /l/ again)


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Uvular /l/ (Was: velarized /l/ again)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 7:23 PM -0400 3/12/09, Neal Whitman wrote:
>>Clarification: When they talk about "velar /l/" here, they mean velarIZED
>>(and I think most of them do write 'velarized' instead of 'velar', just as
>>in the title of the post). As at least one poster has pointed out, a
>>velarIZED /l/ is indeed alveolar: The tongue tip touches the alveolar
>>ridge,
>>but even so, at the same time, the back of the tongue rises somewhat as
>>well. (Is it higher than it goes for the [i] sound, an issue you've
>>brought
>>up? I don't know, but I do know it goes up. If you don't do it, your /l/s
>>sound a little off, like Jerry Reed calling the judge a "hillbilly" in
>>"When
>>You're Hot, You're Hot, or like Snigdha Prakash when she says "dollars.")
>>
>>However, when I talk about a uvular /l/, I do mean uvular. I know from
>>personal experience of making my /l/s this way as a kid that the tip of my
>>tongue stayed on the floor of my mouth, and the back of my tongue touched
>>the way back part of my soft palate (i.e. uvula). This sound really
>>doesn't
>>have anything in common with /l/ at all from an articulatory perspective
>>(other than being a voiced continuant). The airstream is not escaping
>>along
>>the sides of the tongue, as it does for alveolar /l/; it's coming out the
>>nose, as it does for [m, n, N]. The only reason I call it an /l/ is that
>>people who use it really do use it as their realization of /l/. All I can
>>guess is that acoustically it must bear a fair resemblance to alveolar
>>/l/.
>>And to make it, I suggest starting to make the [N] ("ng") sound and really
>>stretch it out. While you're doing that, slowly slide your tongue
>>backwards
>>so that the contact point is maybe 5mm further back, and then you'll
>>probably be making this sound. And if you want to hear what one sounds
>>like,
>>listen to Ira Glass on any episode of This American Life; I'm almost
>>positive that's how he's making his /l/s.
>>
>>Neal
>>
>
> I wonder if that's what up with Steven King's weird (to me)-sounding
> /l/s.  I don't listen to Ira Glass, but I've heard King read a number
> of his stories/novels on tape, and there's something that's always
> struck me as...well, different about those /l/s, but I couldn't put
> my finger on it.  (If it's his uvula, just as well I didn't try
> putting my finger on it.)
>
> LH
>
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