Metrical/syllabic factors in English allophony: dark /l/

This paper presents a single-subject case study illustrating the need to closely examine effects of dialect from syllable position on l-colouring, and the effects of domain-initial strengthening in General American English. Most investigators report lighter /l/ tokens in syllable onsets and darker tokens in coda positions in isolated words. The present study demonstrates an enhanced darkened onset /l/ in front vowel prosodic word (PW) boundaries, but lighter codas at PW-internal boundaries. We address the importance for clinicians of recognizing the impact of prosody on restructuring syntactic boundaries and its consequent effects on /l/ articulation.