Eyjafjallajokull from an icelander

[Geoff Nathan]

Pretty much 'what Paul said'.

In addition, for many Americans, /t/ before /l/ is actually pronounced as a glottal stop--i.e. there is no tongue-tip contact at all, in words like 'cutlet', 'outlaw'.
For examples like 'bottle', 'huddle' the /l/ is a whole syllable by itself (something that Mr. Z has disputed, but this is confirmed by spectrograms and x-rays), and the sound is actually a [d] for many speakers, not even a flap.
The t-l affricate simply doesn't exist in most dialects of English, but you can hear it twice in the Icelandic example provided (once between vowels--'Fjalla', and once in word-final position in 'Jokull'

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
+1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)

----- "Paul Johnston" <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU> wrote:

> From: "Paul Johnston" <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 1:25:09 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: Re: Eyjafjallajokull from an icelander
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Eyjafjallajokull from an icelander
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Strictly speaking, these are combinations of t-l, but, except for the
> last three in  rapid speech (where you just might get the affricate
> Geoffrey is talking about), they involve different places within the
> syllable for the /l/.  In bottle, etc., the /l/ (usually a dark,
> velarized one) is the PEAK of the syllable--the usual place for a
> vowel.  The /t/ before it is an alveolar flap, not quite a /d/, but
> voiced like one, closer to a Spanish intervocalic single r.  In the
> other 3 cases you mention, the /l/ is in the onset of the syllable.
> The /t/ before it is a regular /t/, most of the time, probably
> unreleased.  In the /tl/ combinations mentioned here, the whole sound
> is best looked at as an affricate, a stop where you give it a lateral
> release by dropping the sides of the tongue after alveolar contact--
> and has more characteristics of a single sound, the way /tS/ is in
> English.  As I say, in rapid speech, this sound is a possibility in
> bootlicker, antler, ant lion, but not in the others.  In Icelandic,
> it came historically from a long voiceless /l/ (pre-aspirated?), in
> turn from a long voiced /l/ (final sonorants devoiced in Old
> Icelandic), as the spelling shows.
>
> Paul Johnston
> On Apr 22, 2010, at 12:59 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Eyjafjallajokull from an icelander
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ---------
> >
> > Without suggesting error, I would like an explanation of bottle,
> > throttle, mettle, cattle, settle, kettle, little, mantle, subtle
> and
> > boot-licker, antler, ant-lion--and, for good measure, metal, petal,
> > portal. US might be closer to [d] in most of these (not
> boot-licker,
> > antler, ant-lion or mantle, and no US variant for little, for some
> > reason), but OED says [t] for British. And mantle, little and
> subtle
> > have both schwa and non-schwa variants.
> >
> >      VS-)
> >
> > On 4/22/2010 11:48 AM, Geoffrey Nathan wrote:
> >> ... Since the combination of t-l is impossible in English, native
> >> speakers find it hard to deal with, especially at the beginning or
> >> ending of a word.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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