Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, July 2007; 21(7): 523–542

Contextual variability in American English dark-l

JUDITH OXLEY1, NANCYE ROUSSEL2, & HUGH BUCKINGHAM3

1
Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, LA, USA,
2
Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, LA, USA,
3
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Louisiana State University, LA, USA

(Received 7 November 2006; accepted 21 March 2007)

Abstract
This paper presents a four-subject study that examines the relative influence of syllable position and
stress, together with vowel context on the colouring of the dark-l characteristic of speakers of General
American English. Most investigators report lighter /l/ tokens in syllable onsets and darker tokens in
coda positions. The present study demonstrates that when dark-l serves as an onset in iambic
intervocalic context with tautosyllabic high front vowels, it is fully dark as a result of domain-initial
strengthening. By contrast, when dark-l is abutted across a word boundary to word-final or word-
initial consonants, or when it is contained in a foot-internal context (preboundary intervocalic rime
with trochaic stress) its dorsal gesture is constrained, resulting in less dark tokens. In the case of dark-
l, articulatory undershoot must be understood not only in terms of the alveolar gesture, but also the
dorsal gesture.

Keywords: Articulatory phonology, /l/-allophony, prosody, undershoot

Introduction
The phoneme /l/ has been the subject of increased investigation in recent years, in part due
to its varied phonetic characteristics under the influence of prosodic and metrical forces,
together with articulatory constraints of the short- and long-range phonetic environments.
The range of research tools used has increased over the years allowing for richer description
of its production, and its behaviour under contextual variation has been used to support a
range of theoretical constructs.

Articulation of /l/
The English /l/ is the alveolar lateral approximant. It has two main variants light-l (or clear-
l) and dark-l. Both variants are usually voiced, have tongue tip contact with the alveolar
ridge, and have one or both sides of the tongue lowered to allow lateral escape of air.
Sounds that follow the /l/ influence lip shape, and there may be a preference for lip
rounding for the dark-l by some speakers. The presence of a secondary dorsal gesture

Correspondence: Judith Oxley, Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, PO Box 43170,
Lafayette, LA 70504-3170, USA. Tel: +1 337 482 1188. Fax: +1 504 482 6195. E-mail: odj8147@louisiana.edu
ISSN 0269-9206 print/ISSN 1464-5076 online # 2007 Informa UK Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/02699200701356485
524 J. Oxley et al.

differentiates dark-l from clear-l. The physiological literature suggests that the secondary
gesture may be of several types: upward movement toward the velum (velarizing),
backward movement (retraction), and pharyngeal retraction and lowering (Narayanan,
Alwan, & Huker, 1997; Sproat & Fujimura, 1993; Giles & Moll, 1975; Gick, Kang, &
Whalen, 2002). Thus, there appears to be considerable variation in the production
mechanisms of this secondary articulatory gesture. Recasens (2004) claims that darkness in
/l/ is scalar phonetic property; specifically, he claims that it may be more accurate to regard
the secondary gesture as essential to /l/, and that its involvement is a matter of degree.
There is increasing support for this position from a convergence of physiological evidence
from several methodologies. Acoustic data have also demonstrated that systematic changes
in boundary strengths, together with other factors clearly lead to corresponding lightening
or darkening of /l/ relative to the two extremes within a language or dialect. Crosslinguistic
and dialect studies reveal that both dark-l and light-l vary greatly even within languages or
dialects that are characterized by just one variant of /l/ (Recasens, 1995; Carter, 2003). In
the following sections we shall review three sets of variables that account for the varieties of
/l/ that occur in English (and evidently other languages): dialect, speaker characteristics
(‘‘idiolect’’), and phonetic factors.

Dialect
The absolute quality of /l/ colouring and its distribution seem to be dictated first by the
speaker’s dialect. It is well known that both clear-l and dark-l may co-vary within a
language: in Received Pronunciation English (RP) /l/ is distributed with clear-l typically in
onset position, and dark-l in coda position (Bladon & Al Bamerni, 1976; Bladon & Nolan,
1977); but, by contrast, one form may be used exclusively in both positions, such as clear-l
in dialects of English spoken in Northern Ireland, or dark-l in some Scottish dialects
(Carter, 2003). Tokens of /l/ in General American English (GAE), while generally
following the pattern of relatively clear onsets and darker codas seen in RP, are frequently
described in the literature as being darker overall than their RP counterparts, and particular
dialects of American English, especially Southern, are reported to include either
particularly dark varieties of /l/, or possible even the velar lateral, /L/ (Wells, 1982).
Recasens (2004) notes that American dark-l is darker than the Catalan and Majorcan dark-
l, which have low F2 values. These differences in distribution of clear-l and dark-l within
English dialects, however, do not create phonemic contrasts. In some languages clear-l and
dark-l are contrastive (e.g. Russian). Just as some English dialects are now non-rhotic, there
is evidence that particular English dialects (e.g. varieties of British and Australian English)
are characterized by consistent vocalization of coda-l (Hardcastle & Barry, 1989; Johnson &
Britain, 2003). Within GAE, however, it is possible that instances of vocalized /l/ (or
something very like vocalized-l) could sometimes represent genuine allophonic variations of
/l/ itself, or at other times reflect articulatory undershoot of the alveolar gesture.
Articulatory undershoot may be due to factors such as more rapid speech rate or influence
of surrounding consonants, such as /f/ (Giles & Moll, 1975). A clinical perspective is that l-
vocalization constitutes a developmental error, and that its persistence reflects a deviant
production (e.g. Bauman-Waengler, 2004). Patterns of /l/ usage, including deletions and
substitutions, strongly identify a speaker with a dialect. English dialects differ significantly
in terms of vowel distribution. For example, American English dialects differ greatly in
terms of range and distribution of back vowels and diphthongs (Ball & Müller, 2005; Roca
& Johnson, 1999; Wells, 1982). Given the strong evidence presented by Gick et al. (2002)
 Contextual variability in American English dark-l 525

for coarticulation of the /l/ with the back vowel / /, it is likely that /l/ colouring will also be
influenced by the speaker’s vowel system. The degree of lip rounding that accompanies
dark-l will lower all formant values and further ‘‘darken’’ the resulting token. An excellent
review of the continuum of darkness of /l/ is available in Recasens and Espinosa (2005).

Characteristics of individual speakers

The experimental literature includes frequent references to very strong speaker effects, and
analyses typically include descriptions of data from individual speakers. Speakers have been
observed to differ in terms of their overall patterns of centralizing, backing, and
pharyngealizing /l/. So, even within the same dialect, individual variation in /l/ production
is considerable (see for example Huffman, 1997; Sproat & Fujimura, 1993; Narayanan,
Alwan, & Haker, 1997; Recasens, 2004). These characteristics can be a matter of preference,
or a reflection of the speaker’s general articulatory and prosodic style, which may be
described subjectively as exaggerated, precise/formal, relaxed/casual, ‘‘sloppy’’, immature,
and so forth. Additional factors include lip rounding, speech rate, degree to which the
speakers open their mouths or carry their tongues (e.g. fronting, centralizing, and retracting).

Influence of phonetic contexts

Within the absolute constraints of a speaker’s dialect and idiolect, additional variability in
l-colouring may be due to timing and mechanical-inertial constraints within particular
phonetic contexts. Sproat and Fujimura (1993) demonstrated for coda-l, specifically, tokens
in trochaic intervocalic contexts, that there was a direct association between linguistic
boundary strengths and l-colouring, such that stronger boundaries produced darker tokens,
and weaker boundaries produced lighter tokens. They noted that for GAE, although coda-l is
typically dark, it can be as light as canonical light onset-l when a linguistic boundary is
weakest. They explained their findings in terms of the principles of gestural affinity and
gestural separation: gestural affinity refers to the tendency of the apical consonantal gesture to
be attracted to syllable margins, whereas gestural separation describes the tendency of the
dorsal (vocalic) gesture to be attracted to syllable nuclei. In their data, stronger boundaries
favoured gestural affinity of /l/, resulting in lighter tokens. Huffman (1997) examined /l/ in
graded onset conditions (iambic stress), and reported a parallel result for clear-l onsets, such
that there was a range of colouring depending on boundary strengths. Her data indicated that
gestural separation, or the tendency of conflicting gestures to avoid overlap, accounted for
rather dark-l tokens in certain onset positions. So, in general, although onset-l is light relative
to its coda counterpart, it can exhibit considerable variation in backness, depending on the
available time for its execution. In her data, backer (darker) onset-l tokens were usually, but
not always longer than their lighter counterparts. Thus, her findings suggested gestural
separation and affinity alone could not account for the findings for l-onsets, but that timing
was also critical. Huffman noted that the relationship was further complicated by other
factors, including the vowel context. Recasens and Pallares (2001) elaborated the Degree of
Articulatory Constraint Model (DAC) and concluded tongue position for dark-l is highly
constrained because of the need for two places of articulation, combined with the need for
laterality: ‘‘it may be concluded that the tongue dorsum lowering and retraction gesture
overrides the tongue dorsum raising and fronting when the 2 (i.e., dark-l and /i/) come into
contact’’ (p. 297).
Coda-l is particularly vulnerable to articulatory undershoot, when the tongue tip fails to
touch the alveolar ridge. When this happens, the result is a vowel, as described above. The
526 J. Oxley et al.

most common contexts for vocalization (vowelization) include when /l/ follows a back
vowel or forms a final cluster (e.g. in the words golf or, in some dialects built). The dorsal
gesture for dark-l is almost identical to that found in the vowel / / (Gick et al., 2002).

Complications for dark-l onsets

When a speaker’s dialect or language favours dark-l onsets, the dorsal gesture is an essential
one, and the speaker may experience articulatory undershoot not just for the apical gesture,
but also for the dorsal gesture. When dark-l falls within a relatively brief intervocalic context
(deal a card for me), the possibility for dorsal undershoot increases, but only in a rime with
a high front vowel nucleus, which creates a conflicting transition between the vowel nucleus
and coda-l (Sproat & Fujimura, 1993; Oxley, Buckingham, Roussel, & Daniloff, 2006). In
the case of the trochaic edge coda-l, where /l/ follows a high front vowel and precedes
another consonant (e.g., that’s a peel for me), articulatory range for the dorsum is
potentially limited, compared with the intervocalic context, and this situation would also
reduce the extent of the dorsal movement, unless the boundary were very strong (i.e.
intonational phrase, for example).
In the case of dark-l onsets, articulatory undershoot occurs when the context (e.g.
temporal or phonetic) prevents the speaker from fully executing the essential dorsal gesture.
This type of undershoot results in a decrease in the expected level of acoustic darkening. In
a previous paper, we reported on the data from a speaker of GAE who used dark-l for
onsets and codas, a pattern we had not anticipated. Our original experimental hypothesis
was based on the assumption that our subjects would exhibit the more usual pattern of
relatively clear-l onsets and dark-l codas. We used four contexts that we expected would
show a systematic, graded pattern of light-l through dark-l realization. We proposed that /l/
colouring would be lightest in an edge onset position and next lightest in an iambic
intervocalic onset position. We expected that we would see an intermediate pattern in the
trochaic intervocalic position, and the darkest tokens in the trochaic edge coda position.
The intervocalic trochaic position was potentially ambiguous: in a VC#v context (i.e.
between morphological words), the C is viewed as ambisyllabic, having characteristics of a
coda and an onset. We had hoped to use /l/, as others have used /t/, to learn more about the
syllable affiliation of a word final consonant in trochaic intervocalic contexts in which the l-
boundaries were foot-internal (‘‘[Deal a] F [card for] me’’), or iambic contexts, in which the
boundary is across metrical feet (‘‘[That’s a] F [leaf for] F me’’). For speakers who use the
pattern of light-l onsets and dark-codas, one would expect to see the formant values of /l/ in
phrases like ‘‘deal a’’ or ‘‘dole a’’ closer in colouring to those of the iambic partner ‘‘a leaf/a
loaf’’) then to a (canonical) edge coda partner (peal for/ pole for) if the /l/ were indeed
ambisyllabic. /l/ was paired with either a high front vowel or a mid-low rounded back vowel/
diphthong to control for specific vowel effects. The unexpected finding from our first
speaker’s data was that the iambic intervocalic front vowel context (‘‘That’s a leaf for me’’)
actually produced a very dark /l/ that was significantly darker than even the canonical edge
coda context. This iambic intervocalic onset context would ordinarily favour a clear-l
token, or at least a token closer to the canonical edge onset-l than the edge coda-l. For dark-
l onset speakers, a conflicting context for the dorsal gesture occurs when the dark-l onset is
followed by a high front vowel. In a v#li context, where there is a strong boundary, there is
more time for the dorsum to attain its necessary excursion for dark-l, before moving into
the conflicting gesture for /i/. This is exactly the opposite of the relationship between clear-l
onset and a following /i/, in which there is greater affinity between the tongue blade gestures
for both segments. In the canonical onset position (`Say Miss# `Leaf for `me), there are
 Contextual variability in American English dark-l 527

temporal and articulatory constraints to the maximum dorsal gesture, and these constraints
prevent darkening of /l/. From a strict metrical perspective, the boundary created in the
iambic context is one between two feet, and is stronger than the within-foot boundary
created in the trochaic counterpart (`deal#a). The front vowel trochaic context (deal a)
actually produced /l/s of comparable quality to the canonical onset position. Gestural
separation and timing, together explain this finding. The dorsal gestures of /i/ and dark-l are
in opposition, and so /l/ seems to affiliate closely with the following schwa, which shares the
Dorsal +Back feature. In addition, the foot-internal trochaic intervocalic context CV#c
interval was significantly shorter in duration than its iambic counterpart, creating a context
for articulatory undershoot of the dorsal gesture.

Clinical implications
From a clinical perspective, changes in the production of /l/ may result in errors: when
people produce onset-l as the glide /w/, or something very like it, the listener is apt to
perceive either a different word, or to judge the speech as being immature. The
phonological process identified as gliding is one of the last to be suppressed, and so children
may continue to say ‘‘wabbits’’ for ‘‘rabbits’’ and ‘‘weaves’’ for ‘‘leaves’’ in the earliest years
of formal schooling (Grunwell, 1987). Persistence of this pattern into middle childhood
years would be considered inappropriate. Therapy models typically facilitate the liquid/
glide contrast by moving the child from a stage of single-word through connected speech
production. The target sound is typically presented in a word with an initial /l/ (onset), and
then medially (intervocalic contexts, such as believe or Sally), and eventually embedded
within a longer phrase or sentence. Some treatment programmes emphasize the importance
of the phonetic environment as a variable for the clinician to control to prevent unhelpful
patterns of coarticulation (e.g. Shine, 1989; Bauman-Waengler, 2004). A glance through
samples of common articulation/phonology remediation materials marketed to clinicians
reveals that there is generally little attempt to differentiate ‘‘l-words’’ except for the most
general ‘‘initial-medial-final’’ distinctions (e.g. Artic Photos Fun DecksH For Articulation
& Language, Webber, 2006). The medial context arises within and across words, and
permits onsets, and codas that are actually ambisyllabic. Prosody can determine the quality
of consonants: for example, /t/ in a trochaic intervocalic position is typically realized as a
flap. In the case of dialects with onset dark-l, such as many variants of American English,
one would predict that any phonetic context that permitted a very dark /l/ would be
particularly subject to gliding by individuals predisposed to this pattern.

Purpose of study
In this paper, we shall investigate /l/ in a variety of phonetic and prosodic contexts with a
view to determining which acoustic properties are salient. This information could be
helpful to clinicians who are grappling with the problem of trying to facilitate their clients’
acquisition of the liquid/glide contrast.
Our hypotheses were derived from findings in existing studies that evaluated /l/ in either
trochaic or iambic contexts, but not both within the same speaker (Huffman, 1997; Sproat
& Fujimura, 1993). In these studies, the expectation was for a pattern of /l/ distribution
with light-l onset and dark-l coda; however, based on our earlier findings, we developed a
second set of hypotheses to address the possibility of /l/ distribution with dark-l in both
onset and coda positions.
528 J. Oxley et al.

Hypotheses for light-l onset speakers:

(1) /l/ would be darker in back vowel than in front vowel contexts;
(2) /l/ would exhibit graded darkening as the syllable/prosody context shifted from
iambic edge to iambic intervocalic onsets (IEO and IIVO) to trochaic intervocalic
coda to trochaic edge codas;
(3) The weaker boundary for the TIVC context would lead to F2 values closer to onset
values than to edge coda values.
Hypotheses for dark-l onset speakers:
(1) /l/ would be darker in back vowel than in front vowel contexts;
(2) in back vowel contexts, /l/ would exhibit F2 decline similar to that predicted for (2)
above;
(3) in front vowel contexts, lowest F2 values for /l/ would occur in the iambic
intervocalic onset context; and
(4) there might be an interplay between F2 and F1 in the form of F1 raising to effect
darker codas when F2 was already low.

Method
Participants
The four male speakers in this study were not randomly selected. They were chosen from
colleagues who satisfied the following criteria: (1) relatively low-pitched voice (to facilitate
interpretation of spectograms) and (2) fluent speech. All spoke variants of General
American English. Although all speakers had spent long periods living in different parts of
the US (mainly Midwest and Northeast), they had lived continuously in the South for the
last twenty years. All speakers used fully rhotic productions. Speakers were all between ages
53 to 63 at the time of the data collection. It would be difficult to ascribe a strong regional
accent to any speaker, although Speaker 4 had a more Southern accent than the others,
mainly evident in more centralized onset for the diphthong /o /. Specific profiles are as
follows. Speaker 1 (described in Oxley et al., 2006) grew up in west Pennsylvania in an
immigrant community where Russian was still spoken widely by many adults. His
fundamental frequency was characteristically very low, and at times dipped into the pulse
register. Speakers 2 and 4 were from the Midwest, and Speaker 3 from the East Coast
(Washington, DC area). Speaker 2 lived in the Michigan area. Speaker 4 noted that he had
grown up in several Midwest locations, his parents spoke with a rural Arkansas dialect.

Stimuli
Forty sentences were constructed such that tokens of /l/ were located in four (4) different
metrical/syllable (M/S) environments, and two (2) vocoid environments (front, /i/ and back,
/o / (see Table I for specific names and abbreviations used in the paper). The /o / vocoid was
chosen because variations in production (e.g. /o/) still yield a mid central back vocoid with
some degree of rounding. We acknowledge that the two intervocalic contexts receive different
degrees of stress, in that only the iambic context received tonic accent for the utterance, but
the foot structure is unaffected. Foot assignment followed the left-to-right scanning procedure
described by Liberman and Prince (1977). Certainly, higher levels of prosodic organization
(phonological or prosodic word, phonological phrase, and so forth) will potentially influence
the specific units and boundary strengths, particularly in the iambic contexts, but the
difference will be a matter of degree (Keating, Cho, Fougeron, & Hsu, 2003).
 Contextual variability in American English dark-l 529

Table I. Examples of stimuli used in the study.

Metrical/Syllable (M/S) Context

Trochaic
Iambic Edge Onset Iambic Intervocalic Intervocalic Coda Trochaic Edge Coda
(IEO) Onset (IIVO) (TIVC) (TEC)
Vowel Context C#CV v#CV vC#V vC#C
Front (FV): /i/ `Say Miss `Leaf for `me. `That’s a ` leaf for `me. `Peel a ` peach for `me. `That’s a `peal for `me
Back (BV): /o / `Say Miss `Loaf for `me. `That’s a ` loaf for `me. `Dole a ` bit for `me `That’s a `pole for `me.

Procedure and equipment

Stimuli were presented on a computer screen, one at a time by the first author. Participants
were told to repeat each carrier phrase eight times. After a demonstration and a few
practices on non-target items, recording began. Participants were encouraged to repeat the
sentence at moderate pace in a way that felt natural to them. Subjects wore an Audio-
technica ATR35s lavalier microphone attached to a headset about 2 inches from the
mouth. Each series of eight repetitions was recorded onto a single track of the CD (Audio
CD format) on a Marantz CDR300 recorder. After the stimuli had been recorded,
reference items were also recorded. Speakers also produced three repetitions of vowels in
citation form ‘‘hVd’’, and three productions of /l/ in the context of vowels (i.e. /ili/, /ala /
/olo /, /ulu / etc.). The files were digitised in the CSL 4400 at 11,000Hz. The second
author, who was blind to the hypotheses, completed the acoustic analyses. LPC and FFT
procedures were the principal tools used. Because measurement of /l/ formant structure
could not always be completed reliably via LPC analysis, formant locations were sometimes
determined by eye, using standard criteria (e.g. Sproat & Fujimura, 1993; Huffman, 1997).
Ten per cent of the tokens were reanalysed by a second person, and agreement for vowels
was determined to be approximately 97%, and 86% for /l/ formant values. Measures
recorded include F0-F3 for laterals and adjacent vowels (i.e. schwa and non-reduced
vowel) at midpoint for vowels and at the steady state of /l/; intensity measures were taken
through the sonorant interval; and durations were measured at the beginning- and end-
points of adjacent segments (i.e. CV, vCV, VCv, and VC, where v denotes schwa; see
Table II). Frequency contour analysis of random samples from each of the metrical
environments was completed to establish the location of tonic stress for the carrier phrases.
An analysis completed on the first speaker’s data indicated that the second four repetitions
did not differ statistically from the first four, and added nothing new to the data set;

Table II. /l/ values averaged over 4 speakers, 4 prosodic/syllable contexts (# denotes word boundaries), and 2
vowel contexts (V denotes tautosyllabic vowel, and v, the reduced vowel)

Onsets Codas
Prosodic/Syllable Iambic Edge Iambic Trochaic Trochaic Edge
Context Miss#Cv Intervocalic vCV Intervocalic VCv VC#for
Vowel Front Back Tot Front Back Tot Front Back Tot Front Back Tot All
F1 /l/ Hz 367 388 378 381 382 381 453 399 426 438 417 427 404
F2 /l/ Hz 920 830 875 805 790 797 870 738 804 831 692 761 809
F2-F1 /l/ Hz 552 442 497 424 408 416 417 340 378 392 274 333 406
Duration /l/ sec .078 .075 .077 .110 .110 .110 .073 .076 .075 .085 .077 .081 .086
Intensity /l/ dB 69 69 69 68 67 68 70 70 70 69 68 69 69
530 J. Oxley et al.

therefore, measurements on only the first four productions of Speakers 2, 3, and 4 were
completed for the present study.

Statistical analysis. The first author entered the data into an SPSS 11.0 file. First, a
repeated measures MANOVA (four repetitions, four levels of context, and two levels of
vowel) was completed for each of the /l/ variables (F0-F3, and intensity). The multivariate
F-values for repetition effects alone and with the other variables were not significant, and so
data were collapsed across repetitions and the resulting means were used for subsequent
analyses. These averaged means reflect stable and typical values for the speaker (Table I).
The MANOVA was rerun, but without the repeating component. Post-hoc Tukey HSD
comparisons (p5.05) were completed on context following a significant effect. For the
context and vowel interaction, separate one-way ANOVAs on front vowel and back vowel
contexts, respectively were completed, together with Tukey HSD post-hoc comparisons to
analyse the relative performance of each context within each vowel environment. For
intervocalic contexts, univariate 4 (speaker)62 (IV contexts)62 (vowel) ANOVAs were
also completed for duration values of intervocalic vCV and VCv segments. A separate
ANOVA was completed for the rimes in the two /l/-coda contexts.

Results
Dialect: Dark-l Use
We collected speech samples of vowels in hVd contexts, and /l/ embedded in citation forms
(e.g. ili, ala, ulu, olo) and used the F2 values of /l/ to compare our speakers’ data with data
reported in Recasens (2004) and Lehiste (1964). Our speakers’ data were directly
comparable with that of the dark-l speakers recorded by Recasens, and with the American
speakers recorded by Lehiste (1964, cited in Recasens, 2004). Mean F2 values of /l/ in
citation form for all four of our speakers fell solidly within the range 1200–1300Hz.
Because our findings reflect a pattern of a dark /l/-onsets by all speakers, we used the second
set of hypotheses.
Formant values for the experimental stimuli appear in Table II, and confidence intervals
are in Figure 1. Note that although F2 values for the citation contexts were well within the
ranges reported separately by Lehiste and Recasens (i.e. between 1000–1300Hz), the
majority of values of /l/ in the sentence-embedded experimental stimuli were much closer to
800Hz. This pattern is entirely consistent with Huffman, who also embedded stimuli in
connected speech. She reported at least a few values within this range, and drew attention
to her finding that /l/ F2s were generally lower in connected speech than in citation form
stimuli. Degree of F2 lowering was very much a speaker effect in her data. Espy-Wilson
(1992) also documented some rather low F2 values, particularly in coda positions (between
998Hz), but her data also reflected much lighter tokens in onset positions. Her data,
however, were based on essentially citation forms.

Statistical findings
Analysis of variance was completed on F2, F1, F2-F1, and intensity values to evaluate the
influence of speaker, prosodic/syllable context (referred to hence as ‘‘context’’), and vowel
(back/front) on /l/. Formant and intensity values were taken at midpoint of the steady state
period. The results appear on Table III. We report partial eta squared (gp2) as a strong
index of power, and eta squared (g2) as a way to evaluate the relative contributions of each
effect (Tabachnick & Fidell, 1989). Figures 2–4 show g2 values for F1, F2, and F2-F1 /l/.
 Contextual variability in American English dark-l 531

Figure 1. Mean values for /l/ F1, F2 and F2-F1.

Speaker effect
Overall, the Speaker effect was the most powerful for all variables. Tukey HSD comparisons
(p,.05) indicated that mean F2 values for the speakers showed significant differences as
follows: Speaker 2 (715 Hz),Speakers 1 and 4 (801, 815Hz, respectively),3 (907Hz).
There was less than 200Hz separating the speakers’ mean values. Interaction effects
(Table III) generally reflect these absolute differences among the speakers. For F2-F1, each
speaker differed significantly from the others: 2 (322Hz),1 (349Hz),4 (422Hz),3
(532Hz). Differences in F1 thus differentiate Speakers 1 and 4. Increases in F1, which we
may assume result from dorsum retraction/lowering toward the pharyngeal wall, contribute
to darkening in [l]. From high to low, speakers’ values were 1 (451).2 (393) and 4 (393).3
(375). Speaker 1 (see Oxley et al., 2006) differed considerably from the others in terms of the
high F1 evident in his productions. Speaker variation (i.e. idiolect) is not the focus of this
paper, and we will not address speaker effects further in this paper. We note, however, that
although the speakers differed from one other in absolute terms, they generally presented the
same pattern of variation of dark-l according to the contextual factors of interest.
Context effect
Figure 5 presents mean [l] formant values for the four prosodic/syllable contexts pooled for
both vowels. When F2-F1 is used as a measure of /l/ colouring, we find that the four
contexts differ significantly from one another, with the following Hertz values (darker to
lighter): TEC (331),TIVC (378),IIVO (416),IEO (497). For the F2 measure, there
532 J. Oxley et al.

Table III. Results from analysis of variance on /l/ values.

Partial eta
Effect df F Sig. squared 1 Eta squared 2

Speaker F1 3 144.374 .001 .772 .272

F2 3 151.277 .001 .780 .379
F2-F1 3 181.189 .001 .809 .431
Int 3 225.837 .001 .841 .596
Context: Syllable/Prosodic F1 3 103.176 .001 .707 .195
F2 3 55.092 .001 .564 .138
F2-F1 3 99.716 .001 .700 .182
Int 3 27.829 .001 .395 .073
Vowel Context F1 1 26.638 .001 .172 .017
F2 1 213.481 .001 .625 .178
F2-F1 1 127.827 .001 .500 .086
Int 1 7.989 .005 .059 .001
Speaker * Context F1 9 53.406 .001 .790 .302
F2 9 14.215 .001 .500 .107
F2-F1 9 18.407 .001 .564 .141
Int 9 17.471 .001 .551 .138
Speaker * Vowel F1 3 24.943 .001 .369 .047
F2 3 4.572 .040 .097 .114
F2-F1 3 2.186 .039 .049 .005
Int 3 15.450 .001 .266 .040
Context * Vowel F1 3 35.049 .001 .451 .066
F2 3 19.695 .001 .316 .049
F2-F1 3 10.555 .001 .198 .024
Int 3 1.954 .124 .044 .005
Speaker * Context * Vowel F1 9 3.565 .017 .200 .020
F2 9 4.137 .005 .225 .031
F2-F1 9 3.820 .003 .212 .022
Int 9 .001 .188 .026
Error (All) 128
Total (All) 160
Corrected Total (All) 159

Notes: 1. From SPSS 11.0 printout (reflects independent contribution of each effect in relation to total error SS;
values do not add to 1). 2. Calculated by hand using SS Effect/ Corrected Total from SPSS 11.0 printout: allows
for comparison of relative contributions of effects (added values (1).

was also a strong main effect for context (Table II), and post-hoc Tukey HSD (p,.05)
comparisons indicated significant differences between mean F2 values for all pairs except
the two intervocalic contexts IIVO and TIVC. Changes in F1 account for the significant
difference between the two intervocalic contexts observed in the F2-F1 measure. F1 values
separated themselves into codas (430 and 426) and onsets (381 and 378). Thus, in
intervocalic contexts, F1 strongly determines any further darkening of dark-l, and F1
raising in the rime accounts for the difference. The contribution of F1 to l-darkening is seen
in elevated F1 values for the two coda contexts (TIVC, TEC). Tukey HSD post-hoc
comparisons (p,.05) were significant for the difference between l-onsets and l-codas. In
terms of our hypotheses, the trend of declining values was supported.

Vowel effect
The main effects on the three measures were all significant (Table II) and in the expected
direction. Front vowel contexts yielded lighter l-tokens in terms of (a) the F2-F1 measure
 Contextual variability in American English dark-l 533

Figure 2. Eta squared values for /l/ F1.

Figure 3. Eta squared values for F2 /l/.

534 J. Oxley et al.

Figure 4. Eta squared values of F2-F1 for /l/.

(451Hz.392Hz), and (b) the F2 measure (852Hz.760Hz), respectively. Front vowel

contexts also produced significantly higher (although marginally so, in absolute terms) F1
values for [l] than back vowel contexts: 412Hz vs. 398Hz.

Context by vowel interaction

The critical finding of this experiment is the significant effect for the interaction between
metrical/syllable and vowel contexts on F2 values of /l/ (see Figure 6). Post-hoc Tukey
HSD tests were used to compare F2 values for /l/ of each of the four syllable/prosodic
contexts within the front and back vowel contexts, respectively. The predicted trend for F2
values in dark-l onset speakers to decline from edge onset through edge coda contexts is
evident in the back vowel context; but, within front vowel contexts, the pattern was
interrupted: the iambic intervocalic context yielded the lowest F2 value of /l/ relative to the
other syllable/prosodic contexts. For front vowel contexts, the Tukey HSD test indicated
that values for F2 of /l/ differed significantly (p5.05) as follows: IEO (911Hz).TIVC
(870Hz).TEC (831Hz).IIVO (798Hz). For back vowel contexts, significant differences
(p,.05) were as follows: IEO (820Hz).IIVO (791Hz).TIVC (738Hz).TEC (691Hz).
We acknowledge that the low mean F2 value for the back vowel TEC context (691Hz)
most likely reflects the influence of at least some proportion of either strictly vocalized
tokens, or tokens produced with a reduced alveolar gesture, a possibility suggested by
Shriberg and Kent (2003). Given that the carrier word is always followed by the word ‘‘for’’
 Contextual variability in American English dark-l 535

Figure 5. Mean F1, F2, F2-F1 values pooled for vowel context for the four prosodic/syllable contexts IEO, IIVO,
TIVC, and TEC.

(i.e. ‘‘That’s peel/pole for me’’), the effect of the closing oral cavity in anticipation of /f/
would further lower the F2 value.
The noteworthy finding is that the iambic intervocalic onset context produced a much
lower F2 value for /l/, relative to all other front vowel contexts. Part of the explanation is
that this context represents a between-foot boundary, and is thus stronger than its within-
foot, trochaic intervocalic counterpart. Stronger boundaries permit complete gestures. The
difficulty with boundary strength alone is that it cannot account for distribution of F2
values in the back vowel contexts. An alternate account, and one we prefer, is that front
vowel contexts generally prevent the darker-l tokens generally unless there is a strong
prosodic boundary and a preceding vowel with which dark-l may freely coarticulate (e.g. a
reduced vowel). We note that the iambic intervocalic context (That’s a leaf/loaf…) also
changes the /l/-boundary in that if falls within a phonological word (v) ‘‘a leaf’’, leaving the
/l/ as an unfooted syllable directly under v head. A comparison of Figures 6 and 7 reveals
that the strong boundary context allows for F2 lowering, but /l/ colouring is also determined
by F1 raising, which serves to darken /l/ codas in back vowel contexts.

Duration
We looked first at the relationship between the duration (sec.) of cVC and CVc intervals in
relation to /l/ formant values. A 4 (speaker)62 (intervocalic contexts)62 (vowels) ANOVA
536 J. Oxley et al.

Figure 6. Context by vowel interaction effect for /l/ F2 values.

was completed. Unsurprising significant effects for speaker and vowel effects were noted;
however we report only the variable of interest, namely main effect of context. The mean
duration in seconds for IIVO interval (.331) was significantly longer than the trochaic
counterpart (.280), F (1, 64)532.801, p,.001, and the increased IIVO duration within the
front vowel context provided the environment for a relatively dark /l/ (Figures 1, 6 and 7).
Boundary effects can account adequately for the observed duration difference (i.e. the IIVO
context represents a between-foot boundary, whereas the TIVC context is foot-internal).
The longer duration of the IIVO vocalic interval may also be an indicator of tonic stress.

Prosody
Increased F0 and intensity are potential markers of stress. Because the target intervals in
the trochaic intervocalic context were utterance initial and did not receive tonic stress, we
compared (1) the intensity of vowels in carrier words across both metrical and vowel
contexts, and (2) the relative intensity of carrier words with the non-carrier words that had
received tonic stress. For the first measure, a 4 (speaker)64 (context)62 (vowel) ANOVA
was completed on intensity values for the vowel tautosyllabic to /l/. Speaker and speaker
interaction effects were unsurprisingly significant, but there were no significant effects for
context, vowel, or the context by vowel interaction. We conclude that although context
IIVO received tonic stress, its intensity value was not different from context TIVC, which
received utterance-initial stress. Intensity values for vowels in key locations were made from
 Contextual variability in American English dark-l 537

Figure 7. Context by vowel interaction effect for F2-F1 values.

a random selection of utterances for which intonational contours were printed. Locations of
interest were: for IEO, the first two words ‘‘Say Miss’’; for IIVO, the first word ‘‘That’s’’,
for TIVC ‘‘peach’’ (etc.; see Table I for utterances). We then compared intensity values for
carrier words with words in comparable utterance positions. For all speakers, the first word
in utterances was loudest or at least of equal in intensity to the stressed word in IIVO. In the
phrase ‘‘Say Miss Leap’’ Miss always ranked third after the initial word and the carrier
word. For the back vowel counterpart, the carrier word and Miss were generally equally
loud. This reflects a pattern of greater intensity for the more open back vowels. For context
IIVO, the first word that’s was generally louder relative to the carrier word (That’s a leaf/
loaf), but sometimes it was of equal intensity. For context TIVC, the sentence initial carrier
word was always louder than the word that corresponded to carrier words in other
utterances (i.e. feel louder than peach). We conclude that, in terms of intensity level, the
difference between the position of the carrier-word in the TIVC and the other contexts was
not a factor. The privileged position of utterance-initial words (Feel a peach) was at least
equivalent, if not greater in intensity, to carrier words in the tonic stress bearing IIVO
stimuli (that’s a leaf).
F0 is also a measure of stress, and so F0 values were included in the multivariate
ANOVA reported earlier. We compared mean F0 values of the tautosyllabic vowel in the
carrier words across context and vowel, but found no significant effects for context, or
context by vowel. To examine the possibility that sentence position of carrier words might
influence production of /l/, we compared F0 contours. The observed pattern confirmed
538 J. Oxley et al.

Figure 8. Mean duration of intervocalic vCV and VCv intervals in front and back vowel contexts.

that for context TIVC, carrier words (feel a) exhibited falling contour that began at a lower
pitch than the tonic word (feel a peach for me). In context IIVO (that’s a leaf for me), the F0
dipped from schwa into l, and rose again in /i/ to a level equivalent to the word that’s.
Speaker preference for a rather trochaic cadence and relative emphasis on the first word
meant that although the carrier word in TIVC was not in the tonic position, it nevertheless
received comparable emphasis in terms of F0.

Discussion
The data strongly supported our predictions concerning the way dark-l would pattern in the
four speakers of American English. We note that all four speakers used characteristically
dark-l tokens, whether in citation form or in connected speech, and that connected speech
yielded F2 values that ranged from 200–400Hz lower than citation forms. Given this
pattern, it is of interest to investigate how contextual variations yielded the observed range
of F2 and F2-F1 values.
Our first prediction for dark-l onset speakers was that [l] would be darker in back vowel
than in front vowel contexts, and this unsurprising finding was supported. We predicted
that in back vowel contexts, /l/ would exhibit systematic F2 decline from canonical onset,
through intervocalic onset and coda positions, to canonical coda position, and this
progression was evident in all speakers, and supports the claim by Recasens (2004) that
differences in /l/ are scalar. Our third prediction, also supported across all four speakers,
 Contextual variability in American English dark-l 539

Figure 9. Mean duration of edge CV and VC intervals in front and back vowel contexts.

was that in front vowel contexts, lowest F2 values for /l/ would occur in the iambic
intervocalic onset context. Last, we expected to find systematic interplay between F2 and
F1 in the form of F1 raising to effect darker codas when F2 was already low.
Increased F2 values (lighter tokens) were observed by characteristically dark-l onset
speakers in high front vowel edge contexts (i.e. when /i/ is tautosyllabic), and also in the
intervocalic within-foot boundary environment. The iambic intervocalic ‘‘schwa # [li]’’
context allowed for a between-foot boundary, a long vCV duration, and a shared dorsal
place feature +back between dark-l and the preceding schwa. The combined properties of
this particular context thus allow strong gestural affiliation between the dorsal feature of
dark-l and the preceding reduced vowel (schwa). A fully dark-l, comparable in terms of F2
and F2-F1 values from the corresponding back-vowel context, is facilitated.
Evidence of the syllable position of dark-l in back vowel contexts seems to be evident
mainly in F1 behaviour. We found greatly increased F1 values for dark-l in coda positions.
F1 raising reflects post-dorsum retraction (pharyngeal constriction) (Pickett, 1999). With
F2 already very low in back vowel contexts, additional darkening of codas is realized by F1
raising, which results in a lower F2-F1 measure. The vowels in both rimes (intervocalic and
edge) differed significantly from the vowels in l-onset syllables. It is well known that coda-l
‘‘shades’’ the preceding vowel. Preliminary findings from an ongoing perceptual
investigation of the influence of onset dark-l on the reduced vowel suggests that l-
colouring, in the form of the +back feature, is evident early in the vCV signal when listeners
540 J. Oxley et al.

are asked to identify sounds present in a series of sound clips developed by a forward
truncation process (Roussel & Oxley, 2006).
We know from the duration data that the IIVO vCV interval was much longer than its
TIVC VCv counterpart, but our current data set is not set up to evaluate how much of this
durational difference was due to tonic stress prominence and how much to the foot- or
other boundaries. Still, it seems clear that a relatively dark-l could not be produced in the
front vowel TIVC context. Duration of the sonorant interval containing dark-l with a
tautosyllabic high front vowel is an important determinant of F2.
In tautosyllabic back vowel/diphthong contexts, the dorsal gesture of dark-l
coarticulates freely with the tautosyllabic vowel/diphthong. There is not gestural conflict,
and so timing is no longer an issue. Syllable position and boundary strength determine l-
colouring.
We acknowledge that carrier words for the intervocalic intervals were not situated in the
same part of the utterance, but a review of F0, F0 contour, and intensity values of vowels
tautosyllabic to /l/ suggested that their location did not result in differences in either
intensity or F0 difference. Only duration could be a clue as to the status of stress in the
utterance. This finding is consistent with the effect of domain-initial strengthening reported
by Keating et al. (2003). As we reported in Oxley et al. (2006), the particular strengthening
in the case of dark-l occurs for the dorsal gesture.
Catford (2001) remarked that, to an RP speaker, GAE can have a pharyngeal quality that
comes in part from an overall colouring from the ‘‘bunched’’ /r/ characteristic of many GAE
speakers. The dorsal ‘‘bunching’’ and retraction gesture contrasts with the /r/ that is produced
with apical elevation. Productions of the word ‘‘Colorado’’ by many speakers of GAE can
illustrate the pharyngeal quality that Catford notes: it is loaded with segments that share the
feature +low. Gick et al. (2002) advocate the need to incorporate ‘‘a more efficient model of
tongue root specification into articulatory models of speech production, and for a unified
treatment of the tongue root component of liquids and vowels in theories of phonology’’
(p. 370). From our data, we present acoustic evidence (i.e. F1 raising) that supports a strong
pharyngeal component of dark-l. Connected speech introduces numerous other variables
which potentially modulate the overall colouring of /l/. These include prosody, rate of speech,
boundary strength, and coarticulatory effects of other consonants and vowels in terms of
place, manner, voicing. Carter and others have argued that l-ness is evident across much wider
domains within an utterance than adjacent vowels. It seems plausible that degree of
pharyngeal constriction, reflected in F1, may be an important factor that determines the
overall quality of an English dialect. Further research is needed to determine this conjecture.
For dialects with a distribution of dark-l onsets, our data suggest that clinicians may find
it fruitful to investigate whether their /l/-gliding clients do so in particular contexts; for
example, phrases of the form determiner + an l-initial word (a/the/my leaf), where the word
contains a tautosyllabic high front vowel. Determiners tend to be unstressed or reduced in
contextual speech, except for contrastive usage. The determiner + word context thus sets
up the phonetic context for an exaggerated dorsal gesture, and potential lip rounding,
which may actually increase the speaker’s tendency to glide. This is a primary context for
word-initial, but phonetically intervocalic /l/ in popular therapy activities, such as ‘‘Go
Fish!’’, in which the speaker must repeatedly request items containing a target sound
(‘‘Have you got a/the leaf?’’). Furthermore, from a perceptual perspective, the presence of a
strong +back dorsal feature, together with a slow acoustic transition, more characteristic of
a glide, may influence which features are most salient to the listener. Thus, the clinician’s
model of such a phrase may not be particularly contrastive to the child. Our data suggest
 Contextual variability in American English dark-l 541

only that post-reduced-vowel words with a dark-l onset and a tautosyllabic high front vowel
might be problematic, but not what would be better. We speculate that use of words with
lower front vowels may help, because there would not be a conflicting context for the dorsal
gestures of /l/ and the vowel. The critical point is that stress patterns, syllable shape, and
surrounding vowels exert a synergistic influence on /l/ production and must be considered
carefully in the selection and development of clinical material. These wider contextual
concerns are finding their way into clinical- and clinical teaching literature (e.g. Bauman-
Waengler, 2004; Gordon-Brannan & Weiss, 2007; Kamhi & Pollock, 2005; Smit, 2004;
Velleman, 1998), but there continues to be a lag between the identification of this complex
array of variables in the literature, and its routine use in clinical practice, where there
continues to be dependence on a more narrow and simplistic three-place (initial, medial,
final) model of context.

Summary and conclusions

In this paper we discuss the contextual variation of the dark-l in General American English,
and demonstrate its systematic variation as a result of such factors as prosody, speech rate,
boundary strength, and the coarticulatory effects of vowels and consonants. We found that
that in the case of speakers who use dark-l in both onset and coda position, the /l/ occurring
in onset position in iambic intervocalic contexts with a high front vowel (e.g. ‘‘a leaf’’), is
fully dark, even more so than when it occurs in canonical coda position, which is
traditionally associated with the greatest degree of /l/ darkness. We claim that a strong,
between-foot linguistic boundary precedes /l/ seems to account for this finding, because
more time is available for the tongue dorsum to achieve the dark-l excursion, before moving
to the high front vowel position. This situation contrasts with the /l/ that occurs foot-
internally (and is therefore not subject to boundary strengthening), in a trochaic
intervocalic context, and is less dark due to undershooting of the dorsal gesture. We
believe that the acoustic evidence of F1 raising, reflecting a strong pharyngeal component
in dark-l production, is significant in the area of articulatory phonology. Further, we assert
that when considering dark-l and the process of articulatory undershoot, the dorsal—as well
as the alveolar—gesture should be considered. From a clinical perspective, we demonstrate
that, in addition to well known l-glide-promoting contexts (i.e. syllable coda position and
phonetic contexts that encourage lip rounding) there may be another such context:
specifically any context that allows for an exaggerated dorsal gesture. This information may
assist in the development of more helpful and effective therapeutic material.

Acknowledgment
We wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for helpful suggestions made regarding the
presentation of information. This research was supported in part by the Louisiana
Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), funded by the
National Science Foundation and Board of Regents Support Fund.

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