A typology of laterals in twelve English dialects

Allophonic patterns of variation in English laterals have been well studied in phonetics and phonology for decades, but establishing broad generalizations across varieties has proven challenging. In this study, a typology of onset/coda lateral distinctions in English is advanced using crowdsourced recordings from 95 speakers across twelve dialects of Anglo (UK) English. Results confirm the existence of dialects with and without onset/coda distinctions, and conditional inference trees are used to identify three main patterns in the data: (1) clear onsets and dark codas; (2) intermediate/dark onsets and dark codas, but with a positional distinction intact; and (3) dark onsets and dark codas, with minimal or no distinctions between positions.