Date:  Fri, 26 Apr 1996 21:50:53 -0400

From:  Bryan Gick <bryan.gick[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU>

Subject: Intrusive [l]



Dear Paul et al.-



 My apologies for the 100-plus-line reply (I guarantee that by the end

of it you won't have unwittingly purchased a single magazine), but it seems

there's been lots of interest in this in the last couple days, and since

Beth has suggested I'm the one to ask, I figure I'll try to share what

knowledge I've managed to gather on the subject.



 I've been investigating the "intrusive [l]" (I am mostly interested in

those cases where epenthesis is arguably syllabically motivated..e.g. "i

saw[l]it," "He's draw[l]ing a picture..") for about...oh, 6 or 7

years now. It's got some very interesting and surprisingly far-reaching

implications as an example of a heretofore all-but-unknown hiatus

consonant in English (not least significant of which is to call into

question any non-phonologically motivated accounts of intrusive [r]).

I'd be very interested in knowing whether there are any materials out

there that have escaped my view (make that, _how much_ of what's out there

has escaped my view).

 I've edited down (apologies to the editees) those responses

to Paul's original question that had been posted as of this morning, and

I'll give specific comments where I can.. but to save myself some time, i've

tacked on at the end of this message a version of an abstract (to go out

soon) containing some relevant info, including some of the very few

references that I've found to be of interest.

 My work on this at present involves mostly experimental phonology work

(primarily articulatory) on hiatus phenomena and glides and such. I intend

to present the L stuff as soon as possible (possibly at ESCOL, pending

acceptance). Anyone interested in this and similar phenomena can either

contact me personally, look on my web page for updates (I haven't

actually gotten it up and running as yet, but when I do, it'll be at:

http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~bgick/ ) or wait (with crossed fingers) for

the publication.

 Here's some of what has been said so far:

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

> From:  Paul Fallon <pfallon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]S850.MWC.EDU>

> Subject: Epenthetic [l] in _home_

> I've recently become aware of an epenthetic velarized [l] (el) in the

> word _home_ ... Can anyone guide me to any relevent literature or

> date of discussion on this list so I can search the logs?

> The speakers who do this are from Maryland and Pennsylvania. (Anywhere

> else?) ... Best,  > Paul Fallon

***For this kind of coda stuff (I've collected "Hal nal, braln cal?"

in Philly), Sherry Ash's paper and dissertation (see refs below)

are good. She's concerned mostly with the converse, but closely

intertwined, phenomenon of "/l/-vocalization." - BWG.

> ------------------------------

> From:  simon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU

> Bryan Gick has done work on what he describes as "intrusive l".

> Contact him at bryan.gick[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]yale.edu.   > beth

> --------------------------------

> From:  Wayne Glowka <wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU>

> Last night I was reading a student paper. Instead of "hooves" (a possible

> plural of "hoof"), the student wrote "hulves." I do not know where he

> comes from.  > Wayne Glowka  Georgia College

***there are lots of examples of similar spelling errors in John Lutz'

(unpublished) paper, taken from H.S. students at the Ohio/WV/KY juncture.I

also have lots of spelling errors of philly school kids (saw=sol, etc.).

I'd be interested to know where this student is from, if its no trouble-BWG

> ------------------------------

> From:  "Dale F.Coye" <CoyeCFAT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM>

> ... This is especially common in black English, but I have also heard it

> in SE Pa.  > Dale Coye

***In my experience the two, though similar, show some difft behaviors-BWG

>------------------------------

> From:  "David Bergdahl (614) 593-2783" <BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU>

> For the longest time I've noticed a velarized reflex of an epenthetic [l]

> in one word in my own speech, Oklahoma.

> David Bergdahl  > Ohio University / Athens

***Are you originally from Athens? If so, your right in the thick of it-BWG

> ------------------------------

> From:  Samuel Jones <smjones1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU>

> ... part of the reason for the epenthetic "l" may have to

> do with the diphthonging of the "O"[o + short "u"]. As the lips round

> and closure proceeds, the lower jaw rises. Inside the mouth, the tongue

> also rises ... the apex of the tongue moves quite close to the

> palatal or alveolar position needed for the lateral continuant "L"...

> DR. SAMUEL M. JONES > University of Wisconsin-Madison

***as far as i've been able to gather, there's very little going on in

the realm of the tongue tip gesture that's significant in the coda [l]'s,

underlying or otherwise. This fact is actually central to a coherent

account of the "merger" (say, of "draw/drawl") having occured at all..

I am, though, convinced that articulatory properties are decidedly more

than incidentally involved in such an account. - BWG

--------------------------------------------------------

            "The Intrusive L"

              Bryan Gick

 Yale University, Department of Linguistics (and Haskins Laboratories).

(preliminary abstract, copyright Bryan W. Gick, 1996)

    In this paper I shall discuss a very widespread and linguistically

highly significant yet almost completely unnoticed phenomenon of English

speech that is, to the best of my knowledge, utterly unique to American

dialects*. After a long-standing tradition of study of a parallel phenomenon

well known in dialects of English - intrusive (and linking) R - I refer to

it as the "intrusive L" (after Gick, 1991).

    The intrusive L, to those who have heard it, is very similar to the

intrusive R of many dialects of English (e.g. "I saw[r]it,"

"draw[r]ing"), and is the quite unmistakable "intrusion" or epenthesis of

a "clear" [l] into the hiatus between a low vowel (i.e., [a] or "open o,"

though these two are merged in many of the L-intruding dialects) and a

following vowel, thus: "saw it" becomes "saw[l]it," "drawing" and "drawling"

merge into "draw[l]ing," and the expression "awe inspiring" is often

reanalyzed as "all inspiring."

    Perhaps the most surprising fact about the intrusive L is its

almost complete lack of recognition in either decriptive or analytical

terms, despite its distinctive nature and its broad distribution

throughout some of the most thoroughly studied linguistic regions of

America (it is attested, to the best of my knowledge, only in

unpublished studies by this author and a few others - Lutz, 1984; Gick,

1991; Miller, 1993 - as extending at least from Philadelphia through much

of Southern and Central Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, across Southern

Ohio and continuing strongly through the Ohio/West Virginia/Kentucky

tri-state area, and surely beyond).

    Until now, the "hiatus consonant" market has been completely

dominated by discussion of intrusive R (surely because of its marked

presence in prestige dialects of Southern England). The present

study of the implications of intrusive L will (briefly) call upon recent

work in both theoretical and laboratory (articulatory) phonology to better

understand the phenomenon itself and to show that these different intrusive

consonants in English are in some sense instances of the same phenomenon

- that this phenomenon can no longer simply be explained away as a one-

off lexical anomaly, but must be seen as driven by a much more general

tendency of the English language.



*the only similar case to my knowledge outside of the U.S. is in the

dialect of Bristol, England. There are some (perhaps damning)

differences, but it presents an interesting parallel. The single extensive

work on this dialect to my knowledge is in German (Weissmann, 1970).

_____________

Some References:

Ash, Sharon. 1982. "The Vocalization of Intervocalic /l/ in

    Philadelphia." SECOL Review 6:162-175.

Browman, Catherine P. and Louis Goldstein. 1992. "Articulatory Phonology:

    An Overview." Phonetica 49:155-180.

Gick, Bryan. 1991. A Phonologically Motivated Theory of Intrusive

    Consonants and Related Phenomena in English. Unpublished thesis,

    Edinburgh U.

Lutz, John. A Study of a Midwestern Dialect Using a Computational Model

    for Linguistic Variation. Unpublished thesis, Harvard U.

McCarthy, John. 1993. "A Case of Surface Constraint Violation." Canadian

    Journal of Linguistics 38:169-195.

Miller, Corey. 1993. "Intrusive l in Delaware English." (unpublished)

    paper presented at NWAVE 22, Ottowa.

Sproat, Richard and Osamu Fujimura. 1993. "Allophonic Variation in

    English /l/ and Its Implications for Phonetic Implementation."

    Journal of Phonetics 21:291-311.

Weissmann, E. 1970. "Phonematische Analyse des Stadtdialektes von

    Bristol." Phonetica 21:151-181,211-240.