[KSCI] Korea Science Citation Index Service

http://dx.doi.org/10.13064/KSSS.2015.7.3.073

Lexical Status and the Degree of /l/-darkening

Ahn, Miyeon (Seoul National University)

Publication Information

Phonetics and Speech Sciences / v.7, no.3, 2015 , pp. 73-78 More about this Journal

Abstract

This study explores the degree of velarization of English word-final /l/ (i.e., /l/-darkness) according to the lexical status. Lexical status is defined as whether a speech stimulus is considered as a word or a non-word. We examined the temporal and spectral properties of word-final /l/ in terms of the duration and the frequency difference of F2-F1 values by varying the immediate pre-liquid vowels. The result showed that both temporal and spectral properties were contrastive across all vowel contexts in the way of real words having shorter [l] duration and low F2-F1 values, compared to non-words. That is, /l/ is more heavily velarized in words than in non-words, which suggests that lexical status whether language users encode the speech signal as a word or not is deeply involved in their speech production.

Keywords

speech production; /l/-darkness; velarization; duration; F2-F1;

Citations & Related Records

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