/l/ velarisation as a continuum

PLoS One. 2019 Mar 11;14(3):e0213392. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213392. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a production study to explore the controversial question about /l/ velarisation. Measurements of first (F1), second (F2) and third (F3) formant frequencies and the slope of F2 were analysed to clarify the /l/ velarisation behaviour in European Portuguese (EP). The acoustic data were collected from ten EP speakers, producing trisyllabic words with paroxytone stress pattern, with the liquid consonant at the middle of the word in onset, complex onset and coda positions. Results suggested that /l/ is produced on a continuum in EP. The consistently low F2 indicates that /l/ is velarised in all syllable positions, but variation especially in F1 and F3 revealed that /l/ could be "more velarised" or "less velarised" dependent on syllable positions and vowel contexts. These findings suggest that it is important to consider different acoustic measures to better understand /l/ velarisation in EP.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Language*
  • Linguistics
  • Male
  • Phonetics*
  • Portugal
  • Speech Acoustics*
  • Speech Production Measurement
  • Speech*
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This research was partially funded by national funds through the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology - in the context of the project UID/CEC/00127/2019. There was no additional external funding received for this study.