Allophonie et position dans la syllabe: Le cas des consonnes latérales
Résumé
This study investigates the acoustic manifestation of syllable position allophony in lateral consonants in two languages – American English and Romanian. We compare several parameters: formant values, locus equations, intensity ratios and presence/absence of release bursts, in order to classify the allophones in the two languages studied, and to extract information about articulatory gestures from the acoustic data. The results reveal important cross-language differences. We show that the allophones in the two languages considered do not have a binary distribution, but rather a gradual one, and that the behavior of the dorsal gesture of the lateral could be considered a marker of “degree of clarity”. We also show that the allophony is dependent on syllable position but not necessarily on syllable complexity.